FLU FIGHTERS BUILDING A BETTER SHOT
It’s been 100 years since the influenza pandemic of 1918 — which wasn’t the first nor last. Three more flu pandemics have struck since then — in 1957, 1968, and 2009 — though none were nearly as deadly.
A century later, researchers know more about the virus — how it spreads, how it kills — and have developed better tools to detect, prevent, diagnose, and treat the disease. While we now have successful vaccines that protect against measles, mumps, rubella, and other diseases, the effectiveness of the annual flu vaccine — to date our best protection — varies considerably from year to year. As a result, the constantly changing flu virus all too often slips by our best defenses, leaving us vulnerable to infection.
The Post reached out to the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, for an understanding of what makes this particular virus so deadly and to learn about solutions that are coming down the pike.
Science has made so much progress in developing vaccines against polio, measles, mumps, and rubella, but not flu. What is
