Scientists hail wonder jab to cure all flu
A “HOLY grail” flu vaccine that could cure all forms of the disease including deadly bird flu has moved a step closer after a major breakthrough by scientists.
Not only could it prevent several strains of the annual winter virus and the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu, it could also be the key to halt a pandemic and save millions of lives.
So significant is the breakthrough that experts say they could create such a vaccine in just two years.
Researchers have discovered 10 antibodies that target an “Achilles heel” in most forms of influenza.
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It is a really exciting discovery because it opens up the possibility of a vaccine against all strains.
Until now, scientists have failed to find a vaccine to prevent even seasonal flu because the virus mutates and every winter new jabs need to be produced just to tackle the different circulating strains, giving manufacturers only months to produce stocks.
Current flu jabs target two proteins on the surface of the virus, but they constantly mutate in a bid to fool the immune system.
This latest ground-breaking research has found antibodies which target the weak spot in the “neck” of the virus, just below its peanut-shaped “head” which stops it shape-changing and infecting cells.
Researchers claim that these antibodies protect against easily-transmitted H5N1 even when given to mice three days after they were infected and kept them immune for up to three weeks. Doctors fear millions of people may die from a pandemic before a vaccine is available.
But using the antibodies, which could be made quickly and in large numbers into a single dose treatment, in combination with anti-viral drugs, they could contain the virus during the four to six months it would take to create enough quantities for a suitable vaccine.
A flu pandemic could kill 750,000, with more than six million children affected, including 750,000 under the age of five in Britain alone.
The last pandemic in 1918 was the H1N1 “Spanish flu” strain which killed 230,000 in the UK and up to 100million worldwide.
Professor Peter Openshaw, director of the Centre for Respiratory Infection at Imperial College, London, said: “This discovery is exciting and it raises the possibility that we could get a vaccine to induce your own body to produce these antibodies.
“If you could get your own immune system to make these antibodies attach to the neck, then we might be able to get a vaccine that would stop you getting any type of flu, including H5N1, which would be superb – the holy grail.
“It is a really exciting discovery because it opens up the possibility of a vaccine against all strains.
“We could imagine a vaccine that works against all winter flu strains and also protects against unknown future pandemics. That would be a major breakthrough.”
Professor Robert Liddington, from the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, California, one of the study’s co-authors, said: “This is crucial and very powerful knowledge because it tells us how to make antibodies against the remaining flu strains that we can’t hit at the moment.
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“We certainly believe that a pandemic therapy for all kinds of influenzas maybe within our grasp.”
Dr Ruben Donis, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said they could not find flu viruses that were resistant to the antibodies.
He added: “We could not get the viruses to mutate and escape. These antibodies have an important therapeutic potential and also pave the way for a generation of a different kind of universal vaccine. If you have a vaccine that will develop a long-lasting immunity it will have huge cost savings for seasonal vaccination and pandemic vaccination.”
Dr Wayne Marasco, from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School in Boston, was one of the scientists who led the research, published online in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
He said: “I believe that the possibility of having a pandemic therapy for influenza is certainly made more real and possible because of these discoveries.”
New drug treatments based on the proteins could be several years away, but Prof Liddington said they are working on how to turn their discovery into a
vaccination.
He said: “People tend to emphasise vaccines as the holy grail. But these anti-virals can be very effective in a pandemic outbreak setting.
“They just need to be used judiciously. They are ready to go and should be effective.”
Professor Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said: “The Dana-Farber institute is an internationally renowned body for research and this paper looks very interesting and potentially will be very important for the treatment of influenza, but it is at an early stage.
“We are predicting a pandemic which will be global and undoubtedly lead to many deaths around the world and therefore this sort of research could have an important effect and save lives.”
