Editorial: Flu-jab in the dark?

Defeating the virus - to jab or not to jab.

Avoiding every cliche is next to impossible. Particularly the cliche "there's some nasty bugs going around".

There's certainly something nasty striking thousands of poor souls in this province.

Bosses are fielding the dreaded early morning calls and teachers are teaching decimated classrooms.

Last week Hawke's Bay health officials warned of a rise in influenza-like illness that's putting the hospital's emergency department seriously under the pump.

DHB chief medical officer Dr John Gommans said usually they saw 110 to 120 cases a day, but that had risen to more than 160 a day.

Without the flu-jab, I've been lucky to avoid the lurgy for decades. Nonetheless I'm not anti-vax - just disorganised and mildly subversive.

Every year I witness colleagues and friends - those who have and those who haven't had the jab - fall ill in equal measure.

So from where I'm sitting (symptom-less and confused) the efficacy of said inoculation remains aspirational.

Perhaps individual constitution has more to do with why some bugs are choosy about their host. Just like how certain individuals are mysteriously untouched by mosquitoes.

Maybe science (and mosquito research) should also look to the resilient for answers.

The truth is we've yet to better the remarkable virus. Has history ever boasted a more successful organism?

Like Madonna its lifeblood is reinvention, returning with more spunk and strength at each iteration. It packs an unparalleled lust for life.

Our healthy respect is crucial, but so too is a better understanding of an ever-morphing agent of misery making a strong case for the planet's ultimate survivor.