Seasonal flu vaccines boost immunity to many types of flu viruses

After I got the swine flu shot in 1976, I didn't get sick for three years.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-12/asfm-sfv120914.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 9-Dec-2014

Contact: Garth Hogan
American Society for Microbiology
Seasonal flu vaccines boost immunity to many types of flu viruses

WASHINGTON, DC - December 9, 2014 - Seasonal flu vaccines may protect individuals not only against the strains of flu they contain but also against many additional types, according to a study published this week in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

The work, directed by researchers at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., found that some study participants who reported receiving flu vaccines had a strong immune response not only against the seasonal H3N2 flu strain from 2010, when blood samples were collected for analysis, but also against flu subtypes never included in any vaccine formulation.

The finding is exciting "because it suggests that the seasonal flu vaccine boosts antibody responses and may provide some measure of protection against a new pandemic strain that could emerge from the avian population," said senior study author Paul G. Thomas, PhD, an Associate Member in the Department of Immunology at St. Jude. "There might be a broader extent of reactions than we expected in the normal human population to some of these rare viral variants."

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