Study Finds Nasal Spray Flu Vaccine Provides Additional Protection

A nasal spray flu vaccine provides protection against strains of the influenza virus, including those not even found in the vaccine, according to a new study.

"The virus circulating in the community during the study was A/Sydney (H3N2) and the nasal flu vaccine contained A/Wuhan," says Dr. Pedro Piedra at the Influenza Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine. "The nasal flu vaccine provided protection against A/Sydney in 87 percent of the cases. Meanwhile, the vaccine containing A/Wuhan given by shot provided virtually no protection against the A/Sydney strain."

Baylor, with help from area Kelsey-Seybold clinics, was one of 10 institutions in the United States to take part in the second-year study which involved 1,358 children. The first year of the study found the vaccine was 93 percent effective in preventing the flu, and provided 98 percent protection against influenza-associated ear infections. More than 1,600 children were involved in the first-year study.

Currently, researchers have to have a good match between the virus circulating in the community and the virus in the vaccine in order to provide the best protection against influenza infection. This is challenging because it is hard to predict ahead of time what virus will cause problems in the coming year.

"This finding will make it easier to protect against a variant or different strain of influenza circulating in the community," says Dr. Piedra, a Baylor associate professor of microbiology and immunology, and pediatrician. "That is great news for anyone who wants to protect themselves from the flu."

Baylor is currently involved in a five-year nasal flu vaccine study in Temple, Texas, that will involve 15,000 children. The nasal spray, FluMistTM, was developed by Aviron, a biotechnology company in Mountain View, Calif., in cooperative agreement with the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), who is funding the Temple study.

Flu season begins in November and lasts through March. Influenza kills thousands of people, mostly elderly, and affects millions of others every year. Those at high risk of contracting the flu include people 65 years of age and older, and patients with heart disease, diabetes, kidney failure, AIDS, cancer, chronic lung disease, such as asthma or bronchitis, and children and teenagers on long-term aspirin therapy.

- GEORGE KOVACIK

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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