2006-12-02 04:15:49 · 4 answers · asked by Master T 1 in Health ➔ Diseases & Conditions ➔ Infectious Diseases
The flu vaccine helps to prevent you from contracting any one of the three strains of influenza virus that the vaccine for that year is designed to prevent.
One important thing to remember is that there are still hundreds of common cold viruses out there that can cause respiratory and gastrointestinal illness. The flu vaccine will not prevent these, but these common viral infections are much milder than true influenza.
Many people think they have the flu, but really just have one of the common respiratory or gastro viruses. True influenza is nasty. People are much sicker, have higher fever, and are laid out longer than with common colds. Most people will probably have true influenza only a handful of times in their lifetime.
The other reason for immunization against common influenza strains is that if the next pandemic flu actually hits us, then if most of the population is already immune to common flu, there will be less chance that the bird flu and common flu will exchange genetic info and turn into a more spreadable form.
2006-12-02 04:23:58 · answer #1 · answered by Amuse Bouche 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes they do. researchers work very hard to try to find out which strains of flu are coming your way and that is what they make the vaccines from. even if a different strain of flu comes through you are pretty much guaranteed some resistance to it because your body has built up antibodies to the strains the vaccine has provided for you
2006-12-02 04:20:47 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Seems so, I get one every year and so far it has worked.
2006-12-02 06:00:37 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
no it does not..... it only helps ur immune system a little bit....
2006-12-02 04:25:10 · answer #4 · answered by sosoqueen 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋