Universal Vaccine Developed To Fight All Kinds Of Flu Viruses

January 5, 2008 2:46 p.m. EST

Cambridge, Mass (AHN) - The British and Belgian scientists have developed a new vaccine called ACAM-FLU-A that is claimed to provide long-term protection against everything from winter illness to deadly bird flu. The scientists have been expressing a grave concern over the potential pandemic of the human form of Bird flu that is capable of killing around fifty million people worldwide.

Developed by Acambis the ACAM-FLU-A boasts of protecting against all strains of influenza A that is supposed to be the root cause of pandemics. The latest vaccine is aimed at a diverse area of the virus, a protein named M2e that has no change in a century. Because M2e has never been targeted before, Dr. Breschkin warned it was not known if the protein would mutate if a vaccine was brought in to it.

The deaths caused by flu the world over are around 500,000 per year. Considering these dangerous numbers, the scientists felt it necessary to bring about such vaccine that could protect against not just one specific virus causing the flu but against all the strains of influenza viruses.

The recently conducted trials of the new vaccine show promising results with nine out of ten of those who had doses developing antibodies against the virus. Besides protecting against all types of flu, this vaccine can be engineered the yearlong and can be stockpiled up as a reserve to be given during pandamecis. However to make it fully available more and more wider trials are to be made to guarantee full protection and safety.

One of the problems with existing flu vaccinations is that scientists will have to make a sharp guess regarding which strains will strike 10 months in advance, before designing a new vaccine to completely match the latest mutations.