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The flu vaccine no longer has to be recreated and given every season. With it, you could be protected from flu viruses for life after two or three shots.
5:01 pm, December 7, 2020
Every year the baffled doctors which strain of flu will haunt people in the winter seasonto make a vaccine hopefully suitable. With a mix of ever-changing and ever-changing surface elements of influenza viruses, researchers in New York (USA) created a “chimeric vaccine”. It was tested against different strains in a phase I clinical study that is now in the Specialized magazine “Nature Medicines” showed up.
Influenza viruses carry a protein called “hemagglutinin” on the outside, which they use to reach the dock human cells in order to penetrate. Most seasonal flu vaccines activate the immune system its “head” section carefully exposed to recognize viruses and destroy it. But it is very different among the many tribes and is constantly changing. A team led by Austrian virus researchers Florian Krammer, Peter Palese, and Raffael Nachbagauer, who do research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, developed a vaccine that tones the immune system against the “strain” portion of hemagglutinin, which is extremely similar in all tribes.
“It is chimeric, which means that we combine a trunk with different main domains”Krammer explained: “By vaccinating multiple times, but always using a different head domain, there is a strong immune response against the strain.” Until now, the trunk has not been used as a detection target because it is not as exposed as the head, and without such tricks the immune system is barely aware of it.
The chimeric vaccine has been shown to be effective and safe in a phase I clinical study in 65 people aged 18 to 39 years., the researchers report in the specialized article. The subjects showed a strong immune response against influenza viruses for at least 18 months. In the next phase of development, the vaccine will be tested in people up to 59 years of age, Krammer says.
This vaccine could protect you from flu viruses for life after two or three shots, it says: “Then you would no longer need an annual flu vaccine.” With the new universal vaccine, which triggers an immune response against a broad spectrum of influenza viruses, one would probably also be protected against emerging influenza subspecies (subtypes). This could prevent pandemics like the current Covid-19 in the future with influenza and prevent pandemics like the current Covid-19 in the future with influenza, Krammer said in a broadcast. Seasonal flu is a great health hazard even without the pandemic as in 1918 with 40 million deaths, after all, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 650,000 people die every year.
In addition, annual vaccination campaigns, which at least require a lot of effort and cost a lot of money, could be saved, the researchers explained. This would mainly benefit the poorest countries that barely have the money and logistics for their population to receive an annual flu vaccine.
