Trying to fight the flu is difficult for a number of reasons. Human beings are infected by Influenza A or B viruses. But mutations can create different strains among the main types of A viruses that infect man: H1N1 and H3N2. Because of the time it takes to make the vaccine, the virus’ mutation can result in a mismatch between the circulating virus and the vaccine. This year’s dominant influenza, H3N2, had a large tendency to change or mutate making the vaccine less effective. A greater amount of deaths and hospitalizations were also caused by the virulent virus of this strain. The vaccine usually reduces the possibility of getting sick by 40% to 60%, but when H3N2 is dominant, the numbers can still be lower. While doctors recommend the vaccination for all over the age of 6 months to make the illness less severe, less than half of U.S. adults usually get the vaccine.
With this past winter having seen one of our country’s worse flu seasons in nearly a decade, the medical field is chasing frantically for more permanent influenza vaccines rather than the presently available only mildly successful yearly ones. Here are three researched programs working towards this tough answer:
1. The University of California, Los Angeles, in cooperation with the pharmaceutical Company, GlaxoSmithKline, has developed a new approach for a vaccine that tested successfully in animals. According to Sumathi Reddy of the Wall Street Journal, they are “in the early stages of testing another promising approach in people.” The study, published in Science in January 2018, uses a “live” vaccine in its efforts to boost the immune system’s ability to destroy many viral strains. The test virus was able to protect animals from H3N2 and H1N1 strains of the flu. The new experiment now needs to seek protection from the very different Influenza B strains.
2. Under the leadership of James Crowe of Vanderbilt Vaccine Center, the University Influenza Vaccine Initiative is a newly launched global program where the group sequences the blood of babies, pregnant women, adults, and the elderly who have received the current flu shot or are already infected with the virus. In order to ultimately develop better treatments, this organization hopes to reveal the body’s immune response in a “better light” as they also examine first exposure to the flu. “They have 60 individuals enrolled in the study, with the goal of sequencing or studying 1000.”
3. Anthony Fauci, director of the Federal National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, explains that the organization is attempting “the development of a universal influenza vaccine that would protect against multiple strains of the flu.” He adds, “But it’s many years away from becoming a reality. There are about a dozen candidates that range from preclinical animal studies through and including phase two clinical trials, but we’re still in the area of scientific discovery.”
