What makes flu virus different that we need to get the flu shot every year.

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What makes influenza virus different that we need to get the flu shot every year unlike Poliovirus, which once administered, the immunity can last a lifetime.

In: Biology

2 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

It mutates rapidly

It causes extreme irritation to the lungs and then you get pneumonia and die drowning in your bodies response to the irritation

It is ABSOLUTELY nothing to f with! Get the shot

Anonymous 0 Comments

It is because the flu virus is a very large group of very distinct viral groups that are separated by literally hundreds of millions of years of evolution.

Two different flu viruses can be as genetically distinct from each other as you are from a mouse. And to make it even more complicated, they can undergo horizontal gene transfer as well as vertical, which would be kind of like you and a mouse exchanging a couple of genes.

Because they have so much diversity and because they can transfer genes horizontally, each year they can be absolutely radically different.