Swine flu vaccine. What's the point if virus mutates?

[lavenderkate]

If the experts are correct and you can catch swine flu a second time as the virus will probably mutate, what is the point in having the vaccine?

Can anyone explain?

I'm not an expert, or indeed any sort of scientist (!), but I would have thought that you would have some protection from your immunity to the original virus - it's not as if a mutation is a totally new virus, it still has many of the same genetic markers, so your immune system wouldn't totally fail to recognise it. In other words, I suspect you shouldn't get as ill as someone whose body has never seen anything like it before. I'd rather get protection from the original swine flu than get a more nasty mutated form without ever having been acquainted with the original!

We don't know it will mutate.

Remember 6 months ago they were predicting the whole country would grind to a halt because we would all have swine flu and half the country would die.

I'd have the jab. It will protect you from something which is already in existence.

Short-term protection. Though of course the vaccine is not 100% effective at all.

I'm not going to bother for my family. We are all basically healthy, have no ENT problems and know to stay in bed in the warm the minute we get ill.

ps the swine flu virus has already mutated, just not in any way that has any real significance and not in any way that stops the vaccine from being effective against it.

Don?t all viruses mutate as a natural form of progression or am I just being thick

from my very limited understanding some viruses are more stable than others. I think (remembering off hand) that they are either strands of dna or rna. dna viruses are self checking so when they replicate they are fairly accurate copies that survive. rna based viruses don't have a self check so are more unstable. the hiv virus for instance, every copy is a mutated random one. flu is more stable than that but still the copies arent very accurate.
I'm sure its much more complicated than that, but its what I can remember tonight.