Single vaccine could protect against all colds, flus, Covid and allergies, scientists say

A universal vaccine for cold, flu, Covid and allergies has moved a significant step closer, scientists believe.

Experts at Stanford Medicine in the US have developed a universal vaccine that could be given as a nasal spray and could protect against a wide range of respiratory viruses, bacteria and allergy triggers.

Although the study, published in the journal Science, was in mice, they said the vaccine offered broad protection in the lungs for several months.

Vaccinated mice were protected against Covid and other coronaviruses, Staph (which can infect the skin and cause sepsis), Acinetobacter baumannii (which can cause infections in the blood, urinary tract, lungs or wounds), and house dust mites.

If translated into humans, such a vaccine could replace multiple jabs every year for winter respiratory infections.

It could also potentially work against new pandemic bugs.

Dr Bali Pulendran, director of the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection at Stanford Medicine and lead author, said: “I think what we have is a universal vaccine against diverse respiratory threats…

“Imagine getting a nasal spray in the fall months that protects you from all respiratory viruses including Covid-19, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus and the common cold, as well as bacterial pneumonia and early spring allergens.

“That would transform medical practice.”

The researchers now hope to test the vaccine in humans.

First would come a safety trial followed by a larger trial where patients are exposed to infections.

Dr Pulendran thinks two doses of the nasal spray would be enough to provide protection in people and estimates that, with enough funding, the vaccine might be available within five to seven years.

In the study, researchers were able to show protection in mice and demonstrated that helpful T cells in the lungs, which are working against pathogens, could send signals to the body’s innate immune cells to keep them active.

So instead of trying to mimic part of a pathogen, the vaccine mimics the signals that immune cells use to communicate with each other during an infection.

Brendan Wren, professor of microbial pathogenesis at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “The study claiming a universal respiratory vaccine sounds too good to be true, but the researchers may have hit on a new concept for vaccination, if the results in mice are confirmed in future studies in humans.

“The concept is based on mimicking the signals that our immune cells use for protection, rather than traditional vaccines that rely on components from individual infectious agents.

“The new vaccine stimulates multiple parts of the immune system that appear to account for the broad protection in mice.

“It is a potentially promising approach that could have wide applications and implications, however, it is early days and the studies to date are in mice, though demonstrating good immune responses.

“The next stage would be fully controlled vaccine protection studies, directly comparing results with existing vaccine formulations, though there is a long road to go before we’ll know if this approach produces a safe and effective vaccine for humans.”

In the study, mice were given a drop of the vaccine in their noses.

The vaccine offered protection for several months against different types of viral infections, bacterial respiratory infections and house dust mites, a common trigger for allergic asthma.

The new vaccine, for now known as GLA-3M-052-LS+OVA, mimics the T cell signals that directly stimulate innate immune cells in the lungs.

It also contains a harmless antigen which recruits T cells into the lungs to help the body fight pathogens for weeks or months.