One Step Closer to a Universal Flu Vaccine?

Scientists have been trying to create a universal flu vaccine for decades, but have been unable to do so.

There is hope that the country can be protected against future flu epidemics thanks to a new study. The experimental flu vaccine is similar to Pfizer-bioNTech and Moderna's Covid vaccine.

The vaccine is only being tested in mice and ferrets, but it provides important proof that a single shot could be used against an entire family of Viruses. The approach could be used against the coronaviruses if the vaccine succeeds.

The vaccine wouldn't replace annual flu shots, but it would protect against severe disease and death from a potential Pandemic threat.

Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania who led the work, said there is a need for a new vaccine to protect against the H1N1 flu.

If we had a vaccine like this that was widely used before the H1N1 epidemic, we wouldn't have to shut it down. They described the vaccine in the journal.

Most children have been exposed to the flu multiple times by the age of 5, but only against the strains they have encountered.

The long-lived immune memory that can be recalled later in life can be traced back to our childhood exposure to the flu. We live the rest of our life dependent on the chance that we were exposed to something as a child.

There is little protection against a new strain of flu that may become a threat to the world. The vaccine offered little defense against the H1N1 swine flu. Mild symptoms were developed by older adults who had been exposed to the H1N1 strain.

Scientists have been trying to create a vaccine that would give children immunity to all flu strains. Technical hurdles and the diversity of the flu virus make it difficult for researchers to do their work.

There are 20 different groups of flu that each have thousands of different types of flu. Four groups can be targeted by current vaccines. The vaccine would be quicker to produce.

Several experts said it was promising that the vaccine elicited high levels of antibodies to all the flu strains.

If the vaccine behaves the same in people as it does in animals, we will have a better idea of what the next flu season will look like.

There is a downside to packing 20 targets into one vaccine, as the test animals had lower levels of Antibody than when they were given the vaccine. Even though the levels were high, they were still effective against the flu.

The researchers tested the vaccine against imperfectly matched viruses because of a new strain of flu. The vaccine still provided strong protection, suggesting that it would prevent at least severe illness if it were not for it.

The current Covid vaccines help safeguard most people against severe illness because they are different from the ancestral viruses.

The quality may be an advantage of the vaccine. Conventional flu vaccines are only designed to protect against certain types of viruses. The body's immune system is able to fight off a wide range of Viruses than those included.

Before the vaccine becomes a viable candidate, there are some important questions that need to be answered.

Animals in the study were able to build defenses against all the flu strains. The animals have never seen flu before, according to Richard J. Webby.

The lack of immunity against flu is only found in young children. Older people are exposed to many different strains over their lifetimes and it is not clear if their immune responses to a universal vaccine would be uniform.

Dr Webby said that the proof of the pudding would be what happens when it goes into humans.

It would be a challenge to design a universal vaccine. Some experts said it would be important to know how long the vaccine would last.

Ted Ross, director of Global Vaccine Development at the Cleveland Clinic, said, "The biggest issue about universal flu is what you need to target and how long you can keep using the same vaccine." Updating it may not increase the advantage of how we do vaccines today.

The vaccine could be tested in monkeys and people. It may be difficult to prove its effectiveness. How do you evaluate and regulate a vaccine in a way that doesn't show effectiveness? The doctor said it was Dr.Kelvin.

She wondered if the vaccine could be tested in small sporadic outbreaks, or in poultry workers who are at risk of being exposed to the bird flu.