A lady receives a booster dose of the Moderna coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at a vaccination centre in Antwerp, Belgium, February 1, 2022.
Johanna Geron | Reuters
Patients are actually enrolling in an early stage clinical trial to check a universal flu vaccine based on messenger RNA technology, the National Institutes of Health announced Monday.
Scientists hope the vaccine will protect against a wide range of flu strains and supply long-term immunity so people shouldn’t have to receive a shot every 12 months.
Messenger RNA, or mRNA, is the technology behind Moderna‘s and Pfizer‘s widely used Covid vaccines. NIH played an important role in developing the mRNA platform utilized by Moderna.
“A universal flu vaccine could function a very important line of defense against the spread of a future flu pandemic,” Dr. Hugh Auchincloss, acting director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an announcement Monday.
The universal flu vaccine trial will enroll as much as 50 healthy people ages 18 through 49 to check whether the experimental shot is protected and produces an immune response, in keeping with NIH.
The study may also include participants who receive a quadrivalent flu vaccine, which protects against 4 strains of the virus, to match the experimental universal shot to those currently available on the market.
The universal shot was developed by researchers on the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The clinical trial is enrolling volunteers at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
The present generation of flu vaccines provide essential protection against hospitalization however the effectiveness of the shots can vary widely from 12 months to 12 months.
Scientists straight away should predict months upfront which flu strains will dominate so vaccine manufacturers have time to provide the shots ahead of the respiratory virus season.
The dominant flu strains can change between the time when experts select the strains and the manufacturers roll the shots out. In some seasons, the shots will not be matched well to the circulating strains and are less effective as a consequence.
Flu vaccines reduce the chance of illness by 40% to 60% after they are well matched against the circulating strains, in keeping with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But in some years the the vaccines’ effectiveness has been as little as 19% since the shot was not well matched.
Flu killed between 12,000 and 52,000 people annually within the U.S. from 2010 to 2020 depending the circulating strains and the way well matched the shots were, in keeping with the CDC.