1918 Pandemic Flu Vaccine Created By Researchers

In the last few years, there has been an increasing interest in the flu vaccine.  This is, in large part, a by-product of the emergence of the bird flu that began in Asia and has been the cause of several human deaths.  Influenza researchers believe that pandemic flu outbreaks are occur when a virus normally active in animals mutates, and becomes virulent to people.  At that point, the human immune system has to cope with a totally new virus, and may not do so effectively.  Professional health care workers, researchers, government agencies, and citizens have all come to realize that our current system is not equipped to deal with the massive load on the healthcare infrastructure.  The shortcomings of the U.S. management of influenza became all too apparent two years ago, when our country suffered a shortage in the standard flu vaccine.

Most people do not realize the toll that influenza takes on U.S. citizens.  The fact is, 36,000 people die every year from influenza and its complications.  That’s just the average.  The last pandemic flu outbreak in our country was 1918.  Estimates vary, but historians say the so called “Spanish Flu” claimed between 20 million and 50 million lives.  To put it in perspective, more people died from that outbreak than died in World War I.  This is also four times the number of deaths that occurred during the 1347-1351 Bubonic Plague outbreak with which we are all so familiar.  Yet we never hear about the Spanish Flu in the history books.  You can read about it in The Great Influenza (by John Barry).  The emergence of avian flu in humans has lead government agencies to begin researching the subject with a greater sense of urgency.

What’s being done

In recent years, viable samples of the 1918 virus responsible for the pandemic outbreak was recovered from the Alaskan permafrost and samples sent to research laboratories. There has been some public outcry against this action, with many fearing the virus may again be loosed on humanity.  Unfortunately, this is our only example of a pandemic flu outbreak, and its study may serve to help scientists understand what made it so virulent, so that a method of managing a similar outbreak may be developed.  Since that time, scientists have been working on finding ways to understand how the virus differed from other strains in an effort to combat its effects.

This lead one team to look for antibodies in survivors of the 1918 outbreak.  Much to their surprise, they found viable antibodies in those survivors.  This is considered extremely rare, as resistance to disease normally wanes with time.  Something about this strain of the virus has maintained the antibodies in these survivors for 90+ years.  Researchers were able to clone the antibodies and experiments in mice showed them to still be effective against the virus.  This provides hope as a potential route to combat the virus, should it emerge again to wreak havoc on our populace.  You can follow the link below to read the article in its entirety at ScienceDaily.

1918 Flu Antibodies Resurrected From Elderly Survivors

ScienceDaily (2008-08-18) — Ninety years after the sweeping destruction of the 1918 flu pandemic, researchers have recovered antibodies to the virus — from elderly survivors of the original outbreak. In addition to revealing the surprisingly long-lasting immunity to such viruses, these antibodies could be effective treatments to have on hand if another virus similar to the 1918 flu breaks out in the future. … > read full article

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