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Evie Fordham | Reporter on politics and health
More and more Americans have died of the influenza virus and related causes during the 2017-2018 influenza season than during a whole season in the last 40 years, prompting scientists to look for innovative solutions to the disease that affects thousands of Americans each year.
About 80,000 Americans died of flu and flu complications last winter, CNN reported. A mild influenza season is expected to result in about 12,000 deaths, Fortune reported.
Scientists are exploring options, including ultraviolet lights that kill the flu virus and a "universal vaccine" that would protect people from the flu for years, the Wall Street Journal reported. The research comes as health professionals fear a possible flu pandemic.
"It's not a question of whether it's going to happen, it's a question of when it's going to happen … We have all the ingredients for a pandemic," said Syra Madad of NYC Health + Hospitals. (RELATED: FDA approves "new" single dose Influenza Drug – the first of its kind in 20 years
David Brenner of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University envisions a safe life in the ultraviolet that kills flu germs in places such as doctors' offices and airplanes, WSJ reported.
"Our approach is to try to kill the virus before it reaches you," Brenner told WSJ.
Stuart Goldstein receives a flu shot from Nurse Practitioner Katherine Male at the CVS Pharmacy MinuteClinic on October 4, 2018 in Miami, Florida. Joe Raedle / Getty Images
But light beams are just one way to fight the potentially deadly virus associated with vaccines, Brenner told WSJ. It's there that Anthony Fauci enters the scene.
Fauci is known for his contributions to HIV / AIDS research and is currently Director of the National Institute of Allergic and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). His new focus is the search for a universal flu vaccine with NIH funding to build a team of scientists representing different specialties, WSJ reported. The project has a budget of $ 30 million a year for the next seven years, reported WSJ.
Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Institute of National Institutes of Health (NIH), speaks at the conference "Making AIDS AIDS: A Roadmap to End the World" "Epidemic" at the Hart Senate Building June 14, 2017 in Washington DC Paul Morigi / Getty Images
Large pharmaceutical companies also fund universal vaccine research. A team funded by GlaxoSmithKline and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and led by microbiologist Peter Palese claims to be close, CNBC reported.
"We're really at the forefront right now, and I think we'll have something much better," Palese said, according to a March article by CNBC. "We are talking about years, but not decades."
Xofluza, the first "new mechanism of action" anti-influenza drug, has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the past two decades. The FDA gave the green light to the drug late October, after the 2017-2018 influenza season, which has seen hospitalizations and deaths due to a particularly ineffective vaccine against the flu.
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