Epidemics for “obsolete” diseases still exist — current vaccines trying to keep up to speed

What struck me most about this talk was the realization that outbreaks for diseases we thought were obsolete, still occur, and that vaccines cannot always keep up with the evolution of a viruses and pathogens. For example, the was a reference to a serious outbreak of a disease at Princeton in 2014 which affected a good portion of the college campus. I think we sometimes take our “immunity” for granted, but there was so much history and hard work leading up to the public health measures that we have today. Also it was interested to learn the difference between the injected flu vaccine and the one that’s taken via a nose spray. The one via a nose spray actually has a live (attenuated?) virus while the one injected is less dangerous. I thought this was a really interesting fun fact.

Comments are closed.