Scientists from the University of Lancaster have created a universal vaccine against influenza

Sherry young / fotolia

Every year, flu epidemics cause trouble to hundreds of millions of people for a long period of time. According to the WHO, from 250 to 500 thousand people die of influenza every year. In some years, the number of victims of this dangerous disease reaches a million a year. Despite the fact that influenza pathogens are well studied, it is difficult to fight them. The fact is that there are hundreds of variants of the influenza virus (about 2000), which differ from each other in the antigenic spectrum. The fight against influenza viruses is complicated by the fact that their antigenic structure often changes under natural conditions.

A WHO-recommended way to prevent flu is vaccination . Unfortunately, it is not very effective. In particular, there is no evidence of a decrease in the prevalence of the virus or a decrease in the incidence of complications when using a vaccine. Also, experts have little information about the protection of adults 65 years and older. In general, standard flu vaccines provide moderate protection against virologically confirmed flu, but in some cases this protection is either significantly reduced or not at all. For many years, doctors have been trying to create a universal flu vaccine that is effective against most varieties of the virus. Scientists from the University of Lancaster claim that they succeeded.

According to them, the vaccine is effective against 88% of known influenza virus strains. And for the protection of a person just one injection is enough. Vaccination scientists suggest spending in the winter. Doctors from Spain also participated in the project to develop this drug.
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Researchers have developed two types of universal vaccines. The first one was created for the USA and is effective against 95% of the strains of influenza virus prevalent in this country. The second is a global vaccine, which was discussed above. It is effective against 88% of influenza virus strains.

“Every year we vaccinate people against influenza, choosing several strains that have been active recently. On the basis of these strains, we are developing a vaccine, hoping that it will be effective against the causative agents of the coming epidemic. This method is safe and works well, ”said Derek Gatherer, one of the project participants.

He also added that in some cases this method simply does not work - it happened, for example, in 2014-2015, when the H3N2 strain spread across the planet. According to the expert, vaccines help prevent the emergence of pandemics of dangerous varieties of influenza viruses. Thus, the "Spaniard" claimed millions of lives in 1918, 1957 and 1968.

The flu is still killing hundreds of thousands of people a year. Typically, death is characteristic of older people or people whose body is for some reason weakened.

To create a vaccine, specialists studied the structure of the virus by developing, using specialized software, components of the vaccine that are effective against most known strains of the influenza virus. "Based on previously obtained information about the virus, as well as data on the human immune system, we were able to develop a vaccine that protects people much longer than regular vaccines," said Goterer.

The vaccine is based on the effect on specific structures in the body of the virus, called “epitopes”. Antibodies are attached to these structures. Vaccines of this type appeared relatively long ago, but when creating a new universal vaccine, scientists collected verified information about the vast majority of epitopes of various strains of the influenza virus. The vaccine is a mixture of dozens of known rhinoviruses.

The effectiveness of the new vaccine has been tested in mice and macaques. In all the experiments conducted with the introduction of a new vaccine, the animal organism began to produce antibodies that are effective against the influenza virus. At the same time, scientists injected various strains of the virus into mice and primates. In total, the effect of the vaccine was tested on 25 different strains in the case of mice and 50 strains in the case of macaques. In all cases, the virus was defeated by the animal.

If scientists from the University of Lancaster really created a universal vaccine against influenza, it will help mankind to avoid a recurrence of the Spanish flu pandemic. In 1918-1919 (18 months), about 550 million people were infected with Spaniard all over the world (29.5% of the world's population as of a specified period of time). Approximately 50-100 million people, or 2.7-5.3% of the world's population, died, which makes it possible to consider this epidemic to be one of the largest disasters in the history of mankind. Mortality among those infected was 10–20%. The epidemic began in the last months of World War I and quickly bypassed this largest at the time of armed conflict on the scale of the victims. And many of the victims of the flu were not weakened - they were young and quite healthy people in the age group of 20-40 years. This flu pandemic was the largest in human history in absolute terms, both in terms of the number of people infected and those who died.

The results of the work of the authors of the universal vaccine were published in the journal

Nature Communications .