New vaccine ‘protects against 88% of all flu strains across the world’
Experts at Lancaster University say the jab could consign the flu season to the history books and protect against future global pandemics
We have all endured the hell that is a bout of flu.
That tell-tale sore throat, followed by the sniffles, a cough, aches and pains.
But, the misery of the winter flu season could soon be consigned to history, experts hope.
They believe a new universal flu vaccine could prevent outbreaks, and protect against future global pandemics.
The jab could give protection against 88 per cent of known flu strains across the world.
And, scientists say in the US the injection could protect against 95 per cent of cases.
Dr Derek Gatherer, of Lancaster University, said: "Every year we have a round of flu vaccination, where we choose a recent strain of flu as the vaccine, hoping that it will protect against next year's strains.
"We know this method is safe, and that it works reasonably well most of the time.
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"However, sometimes it doesn't work - as in the H3N2 vaccine failure in winter 2014-2015 - and even when it does it is immensely expensive and labour-intensive.
"Also, these yearly vaccines give us no protection at all against potential future pandemic flu."
Previous pandemics include the "Spanish flu" of 1918, and the two subsequent pandemics of 1957 and 1968, which led to millions of deaths.
Even today, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says that annual flu epidemics are estimated to cause up to half a million deaths globally.
Dr Gatherer added: "It doesn't have to be this way.
"Based on our knowledge of the flu virus and the human immune system, we can use computers to design the components of a vaccine that gives much broader and longer-lasting protection."
Dr Pedro Reche, of Complutense University, said: "A universal flu vaccine is potentially within reach.
"The components of this vaccine would be short flu virus fragments - called epitopes - that are already known to be recognised by the immune system.
"Our collaboration has found a way to select epitopes reaching full population coverage."
Dr Darren Flower, of Aston University, added: "Epitope-based vaccines aren't new, but most reports have no experimental validation.
"We have turned the problem on its head and only use previously-tested epitopes. This allows us to get the best of both worlds, designing a vaccine with a very high likelihood of success."
The team are now seeking partners in the pharmaceutical industry to synthesise their vaccine for a laboratory proof-of-principle test.
The findings are published in the journal Bioinformatics.