Duke University has started Phase 1 clinical trials of an mRNA influenza vaccine. It was developed by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Vaccine Research Center..

The trials will involve 50 volunteers aged 18 to 49, who will be divided into three groups.. Each of them will receive 10, 25 or 50 grams of the vaccine. After scientists determine the optimal dose of the drug, another 10 participants will receive it.

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The study will involve another group of volunteers who will receive an existing flu shot.. Thus, scientists will be able to compare the immune response and safety of vaccines..

Clinicians will follow trial participants for 12 months to assess the immune response to the drug, as well as its short-term and long-term safety..

In the worst years from 2010 to 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that influenza led to 710,000 annual hospitalizations and 52,000 deaths in the U.S.. Flu kills up to 650,000 people worldwide every year.

“A universal influenza vaccine could be a major public health achievement and could save us both the need to develop seasonal influenza vaccines every year and the need for patients to get an annual flu shot.”. Moreover, some strains of the influenza virus have significant pandemic potential..

The universal influenza vaccine can serve as an important line of defense against the spread of a future influenza pandemic,” said Hugh Auchincloss, Acting Director of NIAID.

H1ssF vaccine targets influenza protein hemagglutinin. One part of this protein - the " Researchers believe that this is the key to creating an effective long-acting universal preventive vaccine..

Recall that in Ukraine, the peculiarity of the epidemic season 2022/2023 was the simultaneous incidence of COVID-19 and influenza - a pandemic influenza A virus that came to us in 2009, the so-called cousin of "