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In reply to the discussion: There's a sudden, unexplained upsurge in the number of anti-vaxxers coming in to the clinic. [View all]Aristus
(66,310 posts)Antibodies are helpful in resisting infection even if the strain vaccinated for is not the strain that the patient ends up exposed to.
The way vaccines work is: you don't get sick and then get better; you just don't get sick at all. I try to explain this to my patients who insist that every time they get vaccinated, they end up getting the flu.
It turns out what they get is usually a garden-variety infection like the common cold, and they just think it's the flu. Or often, it's something completely unrelated, like gastroenteritis. But the prevalence of the misnomer 'stomach flu' has taken its toll, and patients think a bout of nausea and vomiting is the flu, and they blame the vaccine.
The presence of antibodies helps to rid the body of the infectious virus, so that the risk of passing on to an unvaccinated person is lowered significantly.
A good way to put it is, if an obnoxious drunk (influenza virus) is in a throwdown with three tough bouncers (viral antibodies), he is really in no shape to be starting another brawl down at the other end of the bar.