“We hope eventually to protect against any flu viruses that we encounter – and this is a potential step in that direction”, Dr Nabel said.
Advertisement
Health experts and doctors believe that a universal flu vaccine would help people at risk and would eliminate the need of them getting these hypodermic injections each year.
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”. But due to frequent mutations of the HA, flu vaccines have to be updated seasonally, so that their effectiveness is certain.
It seems that this particular vaccine worked well in protecting mice and ferrets from the H5N1 bird flu virus, which was lethal in animals which weren’t administered with the vaccine.
It is the stems that scientists are now focusing on as a target for a universal flu jab. Public Health London even claimed that the flu vaccine, poor in its protective qualities, would be behind many flu-related deaths. This means that a vaccine is often not effective if a known viral strain starts to mutate – a constant problem with influenza viruses. The H5N1 virus targeted and killed approximately 400 people since 2003, who had caught the flu virus from infected, domesticated fowl.
Two separate teams of US researchers have found positive results with the vaccine that focuses on the stable part of the flu virus.
A second team, led by Antonietta Impagliazzo at the Crucell Vaccine Institute in Leiden, created their own experimental flu vaccine by removing the head of the HA molecule, and tweaking the stem to make it bind to antibodies more effectively. The first human trials are at least three years away, Graham added. The vaccine was less effective in macaques, but the animals had less severe flu symptoms after receiving the jabs.
“Influenza remains one of the most serious public health challenges, and new therapeutic and preventative solutions are needed.”
Scientists have taken a step closer to developing a single influenza vaccination that can protect against any form of the fast changing and unsafe disease.
Although the researchers say that there still are studies that are required to be done on humans to confirm the effectivity of the vaccine.
“This will be the next stage of research, which will take several years”.
Advertisement
And most of the ferrets, the species that best predicts the success of influenza vaccines on humans, did not fall ill either.
