'Universal' Flu Vaccine Shows Promise in Early Trial - Yahoo! News
A small group of 22 British volunteers is testing out a new "universal" influenza vaccine: one that one day might be effective against all strains of flu and wouldn't have to be reformulated each year, as now happens.
"Our hope is to develop a vaccine that works against all strains of influenza A and all subtypes so we won't need to keep making new flu vaccines each year and new flu vaccines when there is a pandemic," said lead researcher Sarah Gilbert, from the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford. "We will have one vaccine that works against all of them."
The experimental vaccine -- which targets relatively stable proteins inside the virus that are common to most or all strains -- might someday turn flu immunization into just another shot that people could get any time of the year. Fears of flu shot shortages could become a thing of the past, experts said.
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