A “universal” flu vaccine could bring one of the world’s longest pandemics to an end

 Fascinating New Yorker article about developing a better flu vaccine, by Matthew Hutson:

Some viruses are siloed within a single species. But the flu migrates easily among several species, and this adds to its recombinatory range. “There are hundreds of warm-blooded animals that are routinely infected with flu virus,” Taubenberger, who is the chief of the Viral Pathogenesis and Evolution Section at NIAID, told me. “It can move from birds to horses to pigs to humans.” If a bird is infected with two strains of the flu at once, those strains may combine to create a new virus; that virus, in turn, may enter another animal. In 1918, H1N1 infected humans, who passed the disease on to pigs; the swine flu that so alarmed epidemiologists in 2009 emerged when two of the pig strains converged, then returned to humans. The existence of so-called animal reservoirs for the flu makes it more likely that, in any given year, virologists will confront a radically altered opponent. It also means that herd immunity is nearly impossible to achieve. “Viruses like smallpox or measles or polio that are specifically adapted to humans . . . if you vaccinate enough people to generate herd immunity, you can actually eliminate the virus,” Taubenberger said. “But flu can never be eliminated, because it’s in hundreds of species of animals, and it’s constantly moving around. So, we need a better strategy.”

 

That quest has not yet borne fruit, but multiple approaches are being tried around the world. Most vaccines (unlike the SARS-CoV-2 ones, which were unusual in many ways), most vaccine development takes time:

In 1996, the F.D.A. approved Copaxone, a drug Arnon developed, for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. It was a huge leap forward in treatment for the disease, and ushered in what felt like an instant transformation for patients all across the world. For Arnon, however, the approval was the culmination of a long and arduous process; developing the drug had taken twenty-nine years. “The first time that you see that you can prevent infection with something that you synthesize by your own hands, there is an excitement that can’t be really explained in words,” she said. Still, “you have to be patient. And you have to live long.”