Why aren't other viruses vaccine resistant?

[WindFlower92]

So this may be a stupid question but hopefully this is the place to ask! We're all worried about the virus mutating at this point in our vaccine rollout, but why does this not happen with the flu, for example? Lots of people get the vaccine for that, but lots also don't, so why doesn't it develop into a super mutant strain? Or maybe it does and that's why we need a new vaccine every year?

And what happened in the past with other new vaccine rollouts? I'm thinking polio and measles etc. - do they work differently from coronavirus and just not mutate? Or did they mutate when the vaccine was first introduced and we've since tweaked it so it doesn't matter?

Sorry if those questions don't make sense, I'm just thinking out loud here!

As far as I'm aware the flu vaccine varies so it isn't the same flu

I think the reason a flu jab is offered every year is because of mutations.

Not as sure about things like measles, although I had both doses of the MMR as a child and have still had mumps and rubella, although mildly, so no vaccine is 100% effective.

Viruses mutate, that's what they do. Coronavirus is not unique in this regard.

There was a viralologist ? On TV the other day saying they might need to do yearly vaccinations like the flu, things like measles have different proteins so their mutations are harmless.

They can all change. The more prevalent the virus, the more likely any mutations will be passed on.

So for the childhood illness where most people are vaccinated, there's very little of the virus about in the population so little chance to pass on mutated virus.

However the flu has high prevalence and therefore mutations are passed on. Hence every year the vaccine manufactures have to predict which will be the most prevalent flu virus and produce the appropriate vaccine

I guess I'm asking about the headlines that I've seen suggesting that the vaccinations themselves could cause the mutation - for example if we don't vaccinate children then we could get a mutation that only affects children as this is what the virus learns to do. Why did this not happen with other viruses?

That's interesting about the proteins @Mrsjayy! I have become interested in virology, I just wish I was clever enough to understand it all!

My daughter caught mumps after all the MMR doses.

We think my son may also have had whooping cough despite full vaccination.

Both cases were milder than they would have been. The mumps was caused by a lot of people in my daughter's university year not having been given MMR.

There is something called vaccine derived polio.

Do not google if you are a worrier.

Yeah I'm not that clever either but this Dr explained in simple terms,

The simple answer is that some viruses are DNA based and some are RNA based. DNA ones, such as chicken pox, are more stable so rarely mutate. RNA viruses such as flu and COVID mutate much more easily so new vaccines are frequently needed. How they mutate is complex - some mutations make them inactive, some will just be slightly different and the current vaccines will still work and sometimes the change is so big that no one has any immunity which is how pandemics start.

Sorry, that’s really brief, hope someone else comes along who can explain better!

Interesting fact about the flu vaccine, it's pretty much a guess as to what will be the virulent strain. An educated guess, yes, but one none the less.

The mumps vaccine needs to be given to around 80% of people to be effective and unfortunately there will be 10% of people who have the vaccine who won’t become immune. A few years ago uptake rates were around 70%, making outbreaks in people who’ve been vaccinated possible.

Similar happens with other viruses but the percentages of how many need to be vaccinated differ - flu is only 30-50% for example