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 |  Subject: A once-in-a-lifetime flu jab that fights off all strains of the disease is on its way  Tue Nov 16, 2010 2:56 am | |
| A flu jab that is given just once in a lifetime should be available within five years.
Unlike the current vaccine, it would fight off all strains of the disease, from the winter flu that leaves millions feeling miserable each year, to deadly pandemic viruses.
And unlike the existing jab, the U.S.-developed drug would not have to be given each year.
Described as the ‘holy grail’ of flu research, just one or two shots could provide lifelong protection, a conference held by the Royal Society, Britain’s most prestigious scientific body, heard yesterday.
Although flu is often thought of as a minor inconvenience, it can be deadly, killing up to 12,000 Britons each year, many of them elderly.
The current flu jab protects only three-quarters of those vaccinated and needs to be reformulated each year to keep on top of changes in the virus.
It targets a lollipop-shaped head of a protein that sticks out from the surface of flu particles. The protein is key to infection but the head constantly mutates, meaning it differs from strain to strain.
The new drug, developed at the National Institute of Health in Maryland, uses DNA to trick the body’s immune system into producing antibodies against the protein’s base instead – the ‘lollipop stick’.
Unlike the head, the ‘stick’ changes little from strain to strain, meaning one vaccine should protect against multiple strains of the virus.
Dr Gary Nabel, the institute’s director of vaccine research, used the DNA from the protein to trick animals’ immune systems into producing antibodies that seek out and destroy the bug.
He then gave a ‘booster shot’ of a harmless flu or cold virus to ratchet up the immune response.
This primer-booster approach killed off a flu virus from 2007 and one from 1934, despite the DNA coming from a strain that circulated in 1999.
Mice and ferrets – creatures seen as good predictors of the human course of flu – both fought off potentially deadly flus with the help of the double jab.
The vaccine was also effective against bird flu. Safety trials have begun on people and its effectiveness could be tested on patients by 2013.
If the vaccine is as safe and powerful as the research team hope, it should be in widespread use by 2015.
Dr Nabel told the Daily Mail that a universal jab would remove the annual race to outwit the virus by formulating a jab that protects against the latest mutations.
He said: ‘Every year we try to predict which virus will circulate the next year.
‘If we predict correctly and make a vaccine that’s a good match, we are OK.
‘But maybe once every three years a new strain crops up or one that is just completely different from what was predicted.
‘And in these cases, the vaccine isn’t terribly effective and we really have no protection.’
A universal vaccine would also provide valuable protection during a flu pandemic.
Despite the recent outbreak of swine flu proving less serious than feared, scientists believe a flu pandemic could claim hundreds of thousands of lives in the UK alone.
Dr Nabel said: ‘Just because the worst didn’t happen doesn’t give us any certainty that we won’t have a more severe outbreak in future.’
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