Mary didn’t take the bait; instead of countering Karen’s worries about side effects, she chose a different approach.
- Mary:
Influenza can wipe you out for a week. You won’t have the strength to come to work and you would have to take vacation time. Who would take care of your mother at the retirement home if you were sick for a week?
- Karen:
Oh, come on. A week!?
- Mary:
The virus can make a person so tired, that once the fever is gone they still won’t have the strength and energy to do anything productive for nearly a week. You’d even have difficulty finding the strength to visit your mother for another week.
- Karen:
Oh my gosh. That would be bad. I guess I remember being that sick about seven or eight years ago. Back then, my mother came over to help me. She wouldn’t be able to do that any more.
- Mary:
So, now do you think you want to get the shot?
- Karen:
Not so fast; if I got the shot last year, won’t I be immune this year?
- Mary:
The virus changes all the time. The vaccine might protect against the strain of virus that is circulating in the area, but then again, it might not. The new version of the influenza vaccine is designed to protect against the most frequently recognized strains of influenza.
Karen was starting to realize that influenza might really be a different kind of infection than she had thought.
Questions
- Is it a reasonable gamble for Karen to skip the influenza vaccine this year?
- What is antigenic drift (or genetic drift)? What is antigenic shift (or genetic shift)?
Originally published at http://www.sciencecases.org/influenza/influenza2.asp
Copyright © 1999–2009 by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science. Please see our usage guidelines, which outline our policy concerning permissible reproduction of this work.
