Study into universal f lu vaccine seeks 600 children
Hundreds of pregnant Wellington women could help develop a universal flu vaccine, which could save lives.
Crown research institute ESR has been selected by the US National Institutes of Health for the US$3 million research investigating how a child’s first exposure to flu can ‘‘imprint’’ their immune system – and they need 600 to take part from birth.
ESR chief executive Dr Keith McLea said the development of a universal flu vaccine could save millions of lives around the world.
‘‘There are huge implications for the design of a more broadly-reactive and longer-lasting vaccine.’’
The research will follow 600 children in the Wellington, Hutt Valley and Porirua areas over the first seven years of their life. The study will be done in conjunction with others in Los Angeles and Nicaragua’s capital, Managua.
The seven-year research award gave credit to the country’s influenza research to date, McLea said.
The first participant is newborn Liam, of Wainuiomata, and his mother Abi McCarthy said she was excited to be a part of the study.
As a midwife herself, McCarthy said she’d always been interested in how the flu could affect a baby. ‘‘It’s going to be really beneficial if we can find a universal vaccine. It’s going to benefit a lot of people, and it’s going to have benefits worldwide.’’
McCarthy was sick with the flu while pregnant with Liam, and at the time she didn’t realise just how bad her illness was.
Looking back, she saw how serious it could have been, and that was scary, McCarthy said. ‘‘There were a lot of conversations about how sick I was, even though I was immunised.’’
To be involved and a part of the solution for influenza was important and a good opportunity, she added.
The New Zealand project, to be known as the WellKiwis Study, is being led by Dr Sue Huang, of ESR.
‘‘Unravelling the codes of this childhood imprinting may allow us to identify those factors which are critical to immune protection’’, Huang said.
ESR was looking for a universal vaccine that could be administered much less frequently, perhaps once in three to five years or even longer, she said.
ESR will begin recruiting 200 newborn babies and their birth mothers for the study from this month.