A research team from the Nebraska Center for Virology now believe that there could be a universal influenza vaccine developed through the combination of the four main wild type strains circulating in the world today. This finding comes from experiment they did on mice, where mice that were vaccinated with the special form fared much better than mice that were treated with conventional influenza vaccines.
The hope for these researchers is to eventually replicate this to work on humans so that there will not be constant immunizations needed every season. Current vaccines are usually at most 60% effective, and researchers believe this needs to be improved. Although it is a very difficult journey they are embarking on, some say that a universal vaccine could be out in the ten years or so.
Eric Weaver, the leader of the laboratory doing this research, originally got his idea while working as a post-doctoral researcher at Duke University. At that time, he was working with HIV, specifically on how species jump occurred from primates to human beings. So, he began looking at phylogenetic tree for influenza. He is hopeful that the vaccine his team is aiming to develop will be able to confer universal immunity against all of influenza.
Eyasu Kebede
Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171102095927.htm
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