Question

After you covered viruses and now studying infections. Do you think that COVID as an positive RNA single strand virus would mean that we will need a new vaccine each year as in the flu vaccine or not? Explain your thoughts.

Answer 1

All RNA viruses mutate more than the DNA viruses.

Flu virus is negative RNA strand virus and it mutates very often. Mutation brings changes in its molecular structure of the virus. Because the vaccines target the molecules of the virus, mutations will make the vaccines ineffective. That is why new vaccines have to be developed each year for influenza virus.

COVID virus is +ve RNA virus. As of now, it does not seem to be mutating as fast as the influenza virus. If the virus does not mutate, it does not need a new vaccine every year. As per the reports, COVID is mutating slowly but the new variants are not so different from the original COVID observed in China. Because the difference is not much, the vaccine will work on the variants. Influenza virus mutates faster and also irratically bringing major changes in the structure of the virus. Because of that a new vaccine is needed to be developed for influenza virus.

So COVID does not seem to bring too many changes while mutating and hence does not require a new vaccine every year. It is still early to say any thing for sure about COVID as it is a novel virus and still lot of study is going on.