By now it is “old news” that our elders of today who suffered a bout of H1N1 long ago still have antibodies effective against H1N1.
From Nature.com
Long-lived survivors of the 1918 flu pandemic may hold the key to defeating future outbreaks.
Nearly a century after the 1918 influenza pandemic claimed 50 million lives, survivors continue to produce powerful antibodies against the virus, researchers have found.
Before I continue I would like to make a preemptive qualifying statement:
As I have said any number of times I believe in immunizations, further, I believe in influenza immunizations, most years I get one though I’m embarrassed to admit, not every year. Every year I also hound my son and daughter-in-law unrelentingly until they get theirs. In other words: I really do believe in the efficacy of an annual influenza vaccine.
However, even with the above I have come to understand that there is nothing that offers protection against a future bout of influenza like an infection of that strain of influenza in your past. The antibodies from an influenza vaccine cannot compare: a full range is not produced as is produced in a natural infection, the antibodies that are produced are not produced in the numbers, and those numbers begin to wain a few short months after peaking a few weeks after immunization. We see evidence suggestive of this when someone gets a flu shot early in the season and then becomes ill late in the influenza season, their vaccine no longer protective enough to prevent a clinical infection.
There are interesting implications from this research, along with that of others over the last decade that produced similar or closely related results. Those interesting implications will have to wait for another night however as this one finds me with quite the headache and evening tasks that still beckon.
SZ <remembering to jot a note to reserve four flu shots>