Researchers to test universal flu vaccine
UK and Belgian researchers are preparing to test a vaccine on humans that is designed to protect against all major strains of influenza, including bird flu. Just two injections of the new drug could give long-lasting immunity. Current vaccines must be administered annually. 'It wouldn't be that one shot protects for life, but you would need fewer doses over your lifetime,' said Dr Ashley Birkett from UK biotech company Acambis. The company developed the vaccine in collaboration with the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology in Belgium. Virologists have welcomed news of the vaccines, believing that it could provide a stop-gap until specific vaccines for individual flu strains are developed. Scientists around the world have been working for years to develop a universal flu vaccine, but their work is hampered by constant mutations of the virus. Research has focused on two proteins at the surface of the virus, which mutate perpetually. The new vaccine targets a protein known as M2, which is found in the cell membrane of the virus. The M2 protein is found in all 24 types of influenza A and has barely changed over the past 100 years. The vaccine triggers antibodies that attack the virus as it emerges from the host cell.
Countries
Belgium, United Kingdom