Monday, February 7, 2011

Universal Flu Vaccine - too good to be true?

Testing of universal flu vaccine has found early success. A small scale study at Oxford's Jenner Institute found promising results for tests of the feasibility of a possible universal vaccine that could one day replace the yearly flu shot.

According the to report on the medical site, WebMD, "such a vaccine could also help prevent pandemics such as the recent outbreaks of H1N1 swine flu.

Traditional flu vaccines target proteins that sit on the virus’s outside coat and harness the body’s existing antibodies to fight infection. However, these proteins tend to mutate, meaning that manufacturers have to develop new vaccines.

The new treatment targets proteins inside the flu virus that are common across all strains and use existing antiviral T cells to attack the virus."

http://www.webmd.boots.com/cold-and-flu/news/20110207/early-success-for-universal-flu-vaccine

Longer article about this research via The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/feb/06/flu-universal-vaccine-test-success?CMP=twt_gu

No comments:

Post a Comment