Doctors, scientists face challenges in creating flu vaccine

The delicate guesswork of creating a new and effective flu vaccine is a challenge that doctors and scientists face every year to combat the potentially deadly illness that kills thousands of Americans each year.

“We can save millions of Americans from the flu by making incremental improvements to vaccines. If we increase vaccine effectiveness by just 5%, we can prevent over 17,000 additional hospitalizations in a single year,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The flu strain changes each year and also often changes throughout the course of flu season, meaning doctors are entrusted with creating an effective vaccine by examining the circulation of strains worldwide and making a prediction.

Vaccines are either egg-based, cell-based or recombinant and none contain live flu virus.

New technology to improve vaccine manufacturing and effectiveness is a main goal of the CDC, said Messonnier, adding that better worldwide surveillance, diagnostics and consolidation of the virus selection is currently in the works.

Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said, “Certain technologies could offer more opportunity to adjust the composition of the vaccine closer in time to influenza season should a new influenza strain emerge after production has already begun.”

Marks said the FDA is working to speed up the manufacturing process and create better flu antigens.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/388URxO