New vaccine significantly outperforms current stockpiles.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a broad-spectrum vaccine for avian flu that provides complete protection against globally circulating, diverse variants of the disease in animal trials.
Published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, the findings show the new vaccine significantly outperforms the bird flu vaccines currently stockpiled by many governments for a potential human outbreak.
In trials, the stockpiled vaccines protected only about 50 per cent of animals exposed to multiple bird flu variants, whereas the team’s new approach achieved 100 per cent protection.
The study was led by Professor Jonathan Heeney and his team at the Lab of Viral Zoonotics, alongside spin-out DIOSynVax Ltd and international collaborators.
Professor Heeney said: “Rather than providing immunity to a single variant of bird flu, our new broad-spectrum vaccine is protective against a huge range of variants. It’s designed to anticipate viral evolution, rather than reacting to it.”
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