BlueCross BlueShield of Virginia and the Flu

BlueCross BlueShield of Virginia, through USA-Online-Health-Insurance.com, has learned through Medical News Today that researchers have taken the first steps towards developing a universal flu vaccine. The flu, or influenza, claims hundreds of lives every year. As recently as 2009, a swine flu pandemic took 457 lives in the UK.

Of course, the most deadly flu pandemic was in 1918, when the H1N1 virus, then called the "Spanish flu", killed over 500,000 in the U.S. alone. Estimates of worldwide deaths are upwards of 50 million lives. Until the 2009 swine flu pandemic the last was the "Hong Kong Flu" pandemic of 1969. Since 1997, there have been no less than 5 new strains of human flu identified. BlueCross BlueShield of Virginia urges their clients, every year, to go get their flu vaccine to prevent the spread of flu viruses. Vaccinations are applied to your deductibles on most policies, and you depending on your policy, may be available with a copayment.

Most types of flu are given a rating with an 'H' and an 'N' in the title. There are 2 types of proteins found on virus' surfaces. Hemagglutinin is H and neuraminidase is N. Since flu viruses mutate at such a fast rate, there are many different combinations of the H and N proteins that make up the viruses. In fact, in birds, there are 16 H proteins and 9 N proteins. However, there are only 3 of the H's and 2 of the N's common in people. H1N1, most commonly known these days as avian flu, was once called the swine flu, and before that, the Russian flu. Before that, it was called the Spanish flu.

In the last decade, there have been cases of H5N1 identified in a limited number of humans. These people worked with poultry. However, the fact that humans could be infected with the H5 strain is novel, and has spurred research in flu vaccine. Other poultry workers in vastly different countries (Canada and Egypt) have, in the last decade, been diagnosed with H7N3 and H10N7, respectively.

With isolated cases of rarer combinations of the H-N viruses, the rush has been on to discover a universal flu vaccine. As it is, vaccines are effective only against specific mutations of the flu virus. A research team at the University of Southampton, in conjunction with the University of Oxford and with Retroscreen Virology Ltd found a string of peptides that are on the internal makeup of flu viruses. These peptides may be the "Achilles heel" of flu viruses, providing a universal vaccine.

The tests have been carried out on human test subjects who allowed them to be infected with a flu virus in controlled situations. The T-cells generated by the subjects' immune system attacked the peptides within the virus, rather than the outer covering of the virus.

BlueCross BlueShield of Virginia will stay abreast of the developments from this exciting study. The possibility of a one-vaccine-fits-all for the flu viruses that make so many people sick is eagerly awaited.