Summary
The current soon-to-be pandemic of "swine" flu is sweeping the globe. This past year's vaccine does not include this strain, nor did last year's. Vaccine manufacturers will have less credibility for selling next year's product; on the brighter side, antiviral manufacturers will sell out their backlogged products. Hospitals and doctors' offices will be overwhelmed, first by the "worried well" and then by the actually sick.
Analysis
The swine influenza strain that recently surfaced in Mexico ands rapidly spread across international borders is a strain of influenza NOT covered by this or last years' vaccines. Whether there is any cross-protection at all is so far unknown but unlikely. If there is no cross-protection, selling next year's flu vaccine will either be easy (to the flu-phobic) or extremely hard (due to sceptics and those infected this year).
It is possible that recipients of FluMist (live, attenuated influenza vaccine delivered by nasal spray) will have some cross-protection because in past years there has been some efficacy of FluMist against non-vaccine strains. I'm sure this research is underway at Medimmune (AstraZeneca).
The FDA has already "relaxed" the prescribing guidelines for the antivirals shown to have efficacy against this strain. This should help create product demand unseen since 4 years ago.
