Scientists a step Closer To Make Universal Flu Vaccine

The most recent seasonal flu vaccine offered little protection, due to the mutations of the HA.

For this study at the Naval Health Research Center, the researchers assessed influenza vaccine protection using febrile respiratory illness surveillance, which identified Department of Defense (DoD) non-active duty beneficiaries of all ages who presented with fever, cough or sore throat at three outpatient facilities in San Diego, CA and Great Lakes, Illinois.

Neither advance is coming to a drugstore or clinic any time soon. “So we are still some way from having better flu vaccines for humans”, she added.

Casual flu vaccines were created so as to target the haemogglutinin’s head. Human immune systems produce antibodies to neutralize the heads of HAs.

It appears to have worked.

A universal flu vaccine that protects against multiple strains of the virus is a step closer after scientists created experimental jabs that work in animals.

Every year, scientists take an educated guess on which strains of flu will be circulating in a given season so that the annual flu vaccine can protect against those strains.

Two teams of researchers are reporting on progress towards a so-called universal flu vaccine – that that could protect against a number of strains at once. Factors such as age and health of an individual, as well the level of similarity between the flu virus and the flu vaccine can play a role in how well an influenza vaccine works. This is the structure that puts the “H” in flu strain names. The flu virus is constantly mutating.

However a study in the journal Nature Medicine, led by Gary Nabel and Barney Graham of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, also showed that the new vaccine protected immunised ferrets against H5N1.

Prof Sarah Gilbert, Professor of Vaccinology at University of Oxford, said: “This is an exciting development, but the new vaccines now need to be tested in clinical trials to see how well they work in humans”. However, developing such a vaccine was truly challenging.

“This is a leap forward compared to anything done recently”, said John Oxford, a flu expert at the University of London.

Another team at the Scripps Research Institute and the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson took a different route to making a hemagglutinin stem vaccine.

Both sets of researchers developed their vaccines by concentrating on the “stem” of a viral protein known as haemagglutinin (H) rather than the rapidly mutating “head” of the protein.

The mice were completely protected against the flu, the researchers found.

And new vaccines are not only proving more effective seasonally, but may be even more effective on a long term basis.