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CINCINNATI, May 2, 2019 / PRNewswire / – The Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center will use a $ 30 million federal grant – the second largest ever received by the center – to accelerate the pursuit of one of the most delicate goals of medicine: a universal vaccine against influenza.
Public health organizations have long called for an influenza vaccine that can provide more sustainable protection for the population and be stored beyond a single influenza season. Despite decades of effort, influenza vaccines still need to be reformulated every year, with efficiencies ranging from 60% to 20%.
As a result, many people lack confidence in the influenza vaccine and choose not to receive it. It also helps keep flu-related complications among the top 10 causes of death in the country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 46,000 Americans died during the 2018-2019 influenza season.
Now, a $ 30 million A grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) will fund research based here to deepen knowledge about how the immune system of growing infants and children is affected by their first exposure to the virus. influenza. The collection of the required information will involve asking more than 2,000 sets of mothers and infants Cincinnati region and mexico Participate in at least three years of weekly medical tests.
"We need to do better – most other vaccines have an efficacy rate above 90% – we need a flu shot that reaches these levels," he said. Mary Allen Staat, MD, MPH, principal investigator of the new grant. "To achieve this goal, we need much more data from real people – this is what our study will seek to generate – and then vaccine manufacturers will have the information they need to create a better vaccine. quality and more sustainable. "
A growing sense of urgency
For many public health officials, the 2017-18 influenza season has been an awakening. The vaccine did not work well and the CDC estimated that 80,000 people died from pneumonia, a heart attack and a flu-related organ failure. This was the worst record of influenza in almost 40 years.
In response, a group of senators introduced the influenza vaccine February 2018 provide up to $ 1 billion to the National Institutes of Health to support five-year influenza research grants. The bill was not pbaded, but was reintroduced earlier this year. Meanwhile, Congress has increased funding for influenza vaccine research by approximately $ 60 million two years ago more than $ 140 million for the 2019 fiscal year.
The grant to Cincinnati Children & # 39; s is an important part of this growing national effort.
"We are delighted that NIAID has recognized the outstanding expertise of Mr. Staat and Morrow and their team in awarding Cincinnati's second largest grant in the history of children," said Margaret Hostetter, MD, director of the Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation. "There are still many unanswered questions about exposure to flu and the protection of mother and baby." Dr. Staat's study – badociated with Drs' expertise in systems biology . Paul Spearman, Sing Sing Way and his colleagues from Emory University–promises to solve the mysteries with an unmatched combination of epidemiology, expertise in global health and vaccine immunology. "
What is "printing"?
Scientists have struggled to find a universal flu vaccine because the two main types of influenza viruses (H & N) are divided into 28 subtypes.
The new Influenza IMPRINT cohort study will explore the emerging idea that the very first exposure to the influenza virus influences the extent, duration, and magnitude of its immune response to all future exposures to influenza. For example, does a person have better resistance to future influenza outbreaks if their first exposure was to a wild virus or to weakened forms used in vaccines? To what extent does a person's future resistance depend on the specific flu strain that she encounters first? Or, if a person's immune system was primed by a strain, would it complicate the task of his body to respond well to a vaccine that targets a different strain?
"This type of immunological imprint probably accounts for much of the great variation in vaccine efficacy from one year to the next," Staat said.
Better information on fingerprinting may help vaccine researchers determine the ideal combination of influenza strains for use in a universal influenza vaccine with the best chance of protecting people years later, as others Influenza strains will emerge. Beyond the mixture of strains, experts want to determine what is the best age for infants to receive their first vaccine, the best vaccination schedule during pregnancy for pregnant women, even the best time of year in the United States and around the world to get vaccinated.
Seeking dedicated volunteers
Research Partners in Cincinnati and mexico will work with the birth centers of local hospitals to invite mothers to participate in the IMPRINT study.
Each mother will be asked to respond to SMS messages about her child's symptoms and provide nasal swabs weekly for at least three years. Research teams will also collect blood and other samples to track responses to influenza vaccine and wild-influenza virus exposures.
Staat says that Cincinnati Children's won this grant in part because it managed to train a similar cohort of volunteers for a different study on the natural history of infection, called PREVAIL, which also required a weekly participation.
Staat knows personally how much the IMPRINT effort will ask his participants because his family participated in the PREVAIL study. Staat remembers personally delivering samples and taking her granddaughter to the hospital for test days.
"It was intense, but it became our Saturday routine," says Staat. "The mothers who will join IMPRINT will be part of something that will make a real difference."
Provided by Newswise, an online resource for knowledge-based news at www.newswise.com
SOURCE Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
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