A new flu vaccine could make epidemics and the drudgery of yearly shots take wing, according to a team of Oxford scientists who recently tested the panacea on humans with good results.
The team lead by Dr. Sarah Gilbert was able to use a new technique that targets the core of the influenza virus, which is more consistent from strain to strain, according to the Guardian. Current vaccines attack the constantly changing proteins on the outside of the virus, meaning a made-to-order drug must be manufactured—and administered—continually. Gilbert’s vaccine could change all that.
“If we were using the same vaccine year in, year out, it would be more like vaccinating against other diseases like tetanus,” Gilbert told the Guardian. “It would become a routine vaccination that would be manufactured and used all the time at a steady level. We wouldn't have these sudden demands or shortages—all that would stop.”
If avoiding the panicky stockpiling and safety concerns of hastily constructed vaccines isn’t enough, there’s also evidence that the new vaccine might double current efficacy in the elderly, Gilbert said. Because the newly developed vaccine is able to boost T-cell response, rather than forcing older immune systems to produce antibodies, oldsters will have a better chance.
"This study represents some potentially very exciting findings with positive implications not only for influenza but possibly for infectious disease in a wider context,” Kingston University microbiologist Mark Fielder told the Guardian, cautioning that a larger trial was still necessary.
The Oxford team’s original test group was 22 people. Gilbert has sent her results to a medical journal, but they’ve yet to be published, according to the Guardian.
Widespread use of the drug is still at least five years away, Gilbert told Bloomberg Businessweek, but the Utopian ideal of a flu-free world should be worth the wait.
"I think this [new vaccine] is very exciting," New York University flu expert Marc Siegel told Bloomberg. "It's the flu vaccine of the future."
Jolie Breeden is the lead editor and science communicator for Natural Hazards Center publications. She writes and edits for Research Counts; the Quick Response, Mitigation Matters, Public Health, and Weather Ready Research Award report series; as well as for special projects and publications. Breeden graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado Boulder with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.