A team of medical experts from Shanghai's Fudan University and Australia’s University of Melbourne are close to developing a universal vaccine to fight all new influenza viruses, after a scientific breakthrough was made by the team, as reported by the Xinhua News Agency on May 14, Thursday.
According to the report, the medical experts have discovered flu-killing CD8+T-cells that could memorize and destroy strains of influenza.
The team from the two countries started to work together in 2013, during the first outbreak of the avian flu in China.
University of Melbourne's associate professor Katherine Kedzierska told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in an interview on May 14, Thursday, that 99 percent of people with the H7N9 virus were hospitalized, while 30 percent died.
"After collecting samples from infected patients, we found that people who couldn't make these T-cell flu assassins were dying," the professor was quoted as saying.
"These findings lead to the potential of moving from vaccines for specific influenza strains toward developing a protection which is based on T-cells," she added.
Kedzierska described the CD8+T-cells as "army of hit men" in the human body, which kills the cells infected by the virus.
The report said that the researchers intend to create a vaccine using a component of the early killer T-cells, a breakthrough that could result in the development of a vaccine that could battle all new influenza viruses.
Kedzierska added that the discovery could also lead to the creation of a single universal flu vaccine shot.
"This work will also help clinicians to make early predictions of how well a patient's immune system will respond to viruses, so they can manage early interventions such as artificial ventilation more effectively," the professor said.