THE VACCINE AGAINST INFLUENZA VIRUS The vaccination for the influenza virus came to be in 1936 after several years of work by Wilson Smith, Christopher Andrews and Patrick Laidrow (Panse, 2009). They used ferrets to demonstrate how interaction with the influenza virus helped build immunity to future interactions with the virus (Plotkin and Plotkin, 2011). The “flu shot” as it is commonly referred to helps individuals build immunity from the influenza virus that is most prevalent during the fall and winter months each year. The flu vaccine has several commercial names and doses each “season”. During 2015-2016 flu season the names of the influenza vaccines were: Fluzone, Fluarix, FluLaval, Fluvirin, Afluria, Flucelvax, FluBlok, Fluzone Intradermal, Fluzone High Dose, and FluMist (Gibberd, 2015). The vaccine is given intramuscularly in the deltoid muscle typically however there are two flu vaccines …show more content…
All of the intramuscular flu shots are created using inactivated virions from the influenza virus strains circulating at the time of production. This means that the virus has been completely inactivated and it can no longer reproduce and spread, once injected as the vaccine. These vaccines work by being injected into the muscle and entering the body’s circulatory system. The body is then able to determine them to be foreign and sends the immune response system to attack these unknown antigens. Recognition of the antigens are obtained by the memory B cells Since the virus is inactivated it is very easy for the body’s immune response to overcome the antigens because they can’t reproduce or spread in the body. Most all of the inactivated types of flu vaccines are manufactured in embryonated chicken eggs. However there are two inactivated vaccines that aren’t produced in eggs and those are Flucelvax and FluBlok. Flucelvax is manufactured in cultured mammalian cells and FluBlok is manufactured by using DNA recombinant technology that produced