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no, you are immune to it, but there are millions more strains you can catch that give the same symptoms.

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Kailyn Larson

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2y ago
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12y ago

Actually, there are other viral infections that you can catch repeatedly like influenza. A good example is the common cold, caused by at least 200 different kinds of viruses and multiple mutations of each kind. Colds are most commonly caused by the rhinovirus (up to 40% of colds), or Coronavirus (about 20%), but each of those 200+ viruses are capable of rapid mutation into slightly different forms that prevent your immune system defenses from recognizing it as the same that infected you in the past and being able to use the previously-developed antibodies to stop the infections by the mutations or different kinds of viruses.

Flu is also capable of this rapid mutation into new forms that bypass the immune system defenses and make your body create new antibodies to get rid of the virus each time you are exposed to one of the mutations. In the time that it takes to build these new defenses, you can have symptoms of an infection from the cold/flu again.

Some viruses, such as mumps or measles, do not usually mutate rapidly enough to bypass your immune system. So, once you have had those viral infections or once you have been vaccinated against them, and if you are otherwise healthy and have proper functioning immune responses, the prior strains of these viruses are either exactly the same or close enough to the same that your body recognizes them right away and sends out the prior antibodies you developed in the past to stop it immediately, before you have symptoms of the disease.

Flu vaccines are made specifically targeted to the new varieties of viruses that are expected to be circulating in the upcoming flu season. If you are exposed to those viruses after the vaccination (or after having been infected before), you are protected. However, if a different type of flu virus happens along, you will get sick from it unless it is close enough to the viruses contained in the vaccine (or that you had before) to still work.

New strains are created with every mutation. That is why each year new flu vaccines must be developed. Unfortunately, however, the common cold virus mutates so quickly that vaccines can not be developed in time to control the infections before it mutates again.

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12y ago

It depends on which disease you are talking about. Some diseases can only infect a person once: after defeating the enemy, you are given lifetime immunity to getting the disease again. Some diseases, like the common cold or influenza, can be caught repeatedly.

In the case of the common cold, there are over four hundred different types of virus that can cause the symptoms of the "common cold", which belong to five separate groups. Thus, each time that you catch a cold, it is a different type of cold virus you are encountering. A lifetime (as of 2010) is not long enough to learn all the cold virii there are, from the immune system's point of view.

In the case of influenza, there are two factors: one being its vast diversity (though in the case of influenza, they are all in the same group), and the other being its ability to mutate, evolve, and change its antigens so the immune system or old vaccines can't fight it off. Each time, it's a brand-new flu virus that infects you.

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12y ago

Because "the flu" is a more general and traditional way to talk about viral diseases. For examples, you typically also would say "the measles" or "the chicken pox". Rather than, "I caught a chicken pox".

Either is OK grammatically since the sentence would be okay if written either:

I have caught the influenza virus.

Or

I have caught an influenza virus.

Although this is probably said more correctly as "an influenza virus"/ "a flu", it is actually heard less often that way. This is probably because of the history of medicine and the understanding of viruses in general. Originally it was unknown what the cause of influenza and other viral diseases was, because viruses where as yet undiscovered. So it was considered "the flu" since there was no way to know if there was only one causative agent or more at the time. It was considered a single infectious disease rather than the same symptoms caused by multiple different viruses of the same type. Now, however, with electron microscopes, we know that there are different types of influenza viruses, but the traditional way of speaking about them from before we knew that still continues.

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11y ago

no, you are immune to it, but there are millions more strains you can catch that give the same symptoms.

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8y ago

sad to say but it ispossible

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Q: Why can you get a common cold or other disease more than once?
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