Influenza Vaccines in the Elderly. Why don’t they work?
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Influenza Vaccines in the Elderly. Why don’t they work?
IRAS ID
266578
Contact name
Gaia Nebbia
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Influenza viruses circulate world-wide and cause flu outbreaks each winter. These influenza strains continuously evolve to evade antibodies of our immune system. These antibodies are usually specific for only one strain, so people can get flu year after year. Elderly over 65 years are among those at highest risk of most severe disease.
Getting flu or indeed having a flu vaccine protects by stimulating antibodies to virus proteins. Annual influenza vaccination is the most effective way to protect people from flu. The key to a good flu vaccine campaign each winter is to match the vaccine to the flu strains that are circulating just prior to and therefore hopefully during each winter season. This ensures people have antibodies in their body ready to protect against circulating flu strains. Recent studies have demonstrated that for elderly people, the effectiveness of the annual flu vaccine is less than 20%.
The main focus of our research is to work out why vaccines aren't working in the elderly. We want to study the fine detail of the antibodies against influenza by taking a serum sample from over 65 patients admitted to hospital with laboratory confirmed flu and relate this information to the severity of illness, the type of vaccine they received and the fine details of the influenza virus that caused the infection by determine the genetic code of the flu strain in clinical samples. We also propose to use a point of care test on a finger prick of blood to determine whether the patient has a sole viral infection or some other infection due to a bacteria. Finally collaborative work at KCL on collected blood samples exploring why elderly have blunted immune responses through detailed scientific laboratory work will complement this project.REC name
North West - Greater Manchester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/NW/0758
Date of REC Opinion
20 Dec 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion