Use of Computational Matrix Adjustment to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Common Influenza Vaccines against the Emergence of Drift Variants

Abstract

Every year the FDA issues a recommendation for the composition of the year's common influenza vaccine for influenzas A and B. The FDA can consistently predict the dominance of a particular strand of influenza virus by taking into account previous years' antigenic characterization percentages. However, the sudden disappearance of dominant antigens and the sudden emergence of drift variants can disrupt this pattern, which questions the effectiveness of that year's vaccine. Basic Local Alignment Search Tool was used to compare the protein sequences for hemagglutinin and neuraminidase between the strands in the vaccine and the dominant viral strands. This study examined the effectiveness of