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Every couple of months we seem to get another article about a new, improved, and sometimes `universal' influenza vaccine on the drawing boards that will deliver us from the next pandemic. While some of these vaccines show promise, most are years away.
Jab could beat all types of flu for rest of your life
By FIONA MACRAE
British scientists are developing a vaccine to give lifelong protection against all strains of flu.
It would deal with everything from a winter virus to a bird flu outbreak.
Current flu jabs are out of date within a year because the virus mutates so often.
The new FLU-v vaccine is also easier to make than traditional jabs, so it could be stockpiled against a global pandemic.
Flu kills up to 12,000 Britons a year, many of them elderly. A pandemic of the human form of bird flu – which many experts say is inevitable – could claim 700,000 lives in the UK alone.
It is hoped the first human trials of FLU-v will start next year. If they go well, it could be on the market in three to five years.
Dr Stuart Robinson of the Buckinghamshire company PepTcell, which developed the vaccine, said: "We expect one course of injections – probably of two a week apart – to give life-long immunity".
Existing flu jabs focus on a pair of proteins on the surface of the virus. These constantly mutate, however, making it impossible to prepare in advance for each new strain.
The new vaccine is based on other proteins, common to all strains of the virus, which have not mutated for 60 years.
Rather than using antibodies to kill the virus, the new jab relies on the power of other immune system cells called cytotoxic T cells.
Lab tests have shown that FLUvcan save mice given a dose of flu that would normally kill them. Results being presented at a Toronto conference today show that more than half the treated mice survived. Unvaccinated creatures died.
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