The current flu vaccine is only estimated to be 40% effective. That doesn’t mean that only 40% of people who get it will avoid the getting it; it means that the vaccine cuts the risk of someone who gets it from needing to pursue medical help when they do get it.
Good news for the future
Because not all flu vaccines protect against the same strain, a new vaccine is required each year. But a new study has found that one particular type of immune cell may help protect us from every strain of influenza.
A team of researchers from the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Australia found that killer T cells in our body protect against influenza A, B and C. These immune cells are so effective that they may eventually help us develop a universal flu vaccine that would work year after year.
“Our immunization studies with the peptide responsible for activating the killer T cells revealed remarkably reduced levels of flu virus and inflammation in the airways,” says the lead author of the paper, Marios Koutsakos. “We have identified the parts of the virus that are shared across all flu strains and sub-strains capable of infecting humans, and then investigated if we could find robust responses to those viral parts in healthy humans and influenza-infected adults and children.”
The results of the paper were published in the journal Nature Immunology.
Influenza in the United States
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the 2017-18 flu season saw more than 30,000 cases of hospitalization. Of those 185 children died from influenza. About 80% of them had not gotten a flu shot.
Of the three strains of influenza, type B seems to be the least researched.
“Influenza B immunology particularly has remained largely understudied because it doesn’t have pandemic potential,” explains Katherine Kedzierska, the laboratory head at the Doherty Institute and a professor at the University of Melbourne. “However, it is a serious virus that can lead to death and severe illness, mostly in children, and was one of the missing pieces of the universal flu protection puzzle.”
