Would a Swine Flu Vaccine be Effective?

Shouldn’t we have a swine flu vaccine by now? Every fall, the Center for Disease Control releases flu vaccines that target specific influenza strains that are expected to hit hard that following winter. Typically, these vaccines are fairly effective. So where can you get your swine flu vaccination? Unfortunately, the swine flu, or H1N1 flu virus--a flu strain spread by live pigs to people and now from person to person--has arrived unexpectedly and no vaccine preparations have been made for this specific strain. All current flu vaccines have no effect against the swine flu, which contains human, pig, and avian strains of influenza.

The process of creating a flu vaccine is time consuming—even with the threat of a world pandemic. If companies started today--which they haven’t—it would still take six months of preparation before you could walk into your local clinic and get a vaccine shot. Vaccines today are made in much the same way as 20 years ago: cultivating the flu-specific virus in fertilized chicken eggs, killing the live virus, and then purifying and testing the vaccines. The fact that you need a rooster and a hen, not to mention the incubation and testing periods, means that very little can improve upon the timeline for development.

However, once (and if) this swine flu vaccine is developed, it will be as effective against the swine flu as previous flu vaccines have been against their respective strains. The vaccine would specifically target the H1N1 virus, and those who are inoculated would have approximately 70-90% chance of beating the flu if exposed to that particular strain.

Until a swine flu vaccine is developed, continue with common by combating any airborne disease: wash your hands regularly with soap and warm water, limit physical contact like hand-shaking, don’t share food and drink with others, and keep your distance from those who appear sick. You cannot catch the swine flu from eating pork, and all bacteria and other viruses are killed when pork is cooked to the correct internal temperature of 160 degrees.