Influenza Vaccination

Influenza places a heavy burden on society. Distress of the community resulting from the disease translates into difficulties in family management as well as absence from work, school and social work. Moreover, there is still uncertainty in the current knowledge of anti-influenza immunity, even though, thanks to advances in molecular biology, the structure, chemistry and genetics of the virus are by now almost completely known. The greatest difficulty of the vaccine lies in the great variability of the influenza virus. The A and influenza viruses are the most important ones. The A viruses include several subtypes, H3N2 and H1N1 being presently the most important ones. The present vaccine, therefore, must be updated every year with strains that have the greatest probability of spreading in the human population during the influenza season. New influenza vaccines based on molecular biotechnology, such as DNA-recombinant or naked DNA vaccines, are currently widely studied and represent the vaccines that, hopefully, will bring about important improvements in the near future.