14 DAY TRIAL // Seasonal flu vaccinations may soon become a thing of the past, thanks to a study being conducted at the University of British Columbia (UBC), in Canada. Experts here say that they are very close to creating a universal flu vaccine.
If it works, this would represent the first time that such a vaccine is obtained. This condition has claimed millions of lives throughout history (in addition to 14,000 people in 2009 alone), and researchers have been trying to counteract it for decades.
Official statistics indicate that flu pandemics cause severe health problems in 3 to 5 million people annually, killing between 200,000 and 500,000 of them. These numbers could soon diminish considerably, the UBC team writes in the latest issue of the journal Frontiers in Immunology.
The new study was made possible by funds from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the International Consortium for Anti-Virals and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. A final version of the vaccine could be made available to the public in the coming years.