VACCINATING against flu is notoriously difficult. Ordinary flu evolves and needs a new vaccine every year, while a vaccine for a novel pandemic virus will probably come too late for many people. Now Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases may have found a way towards the long-sought vaccine against all flu (The Journal of Infectious Diseases, vol 196, p 1313).
Ordinary flu vaccine contains dead influenza A viruses from the H1 and H3 families. When the researchers put this, plus the RNA-like drug Ampligen, into the noses of mice, the mice made antibodies not only to the vaccine viruses…
