Francis Collins told USA TODAY's Editorial Board on Tuesday that he is "guardedly optimistic" about development of a long-term shot to replace the one "you'd have to renew every year."
About 200,000 people are hospitalized with the flu every year, and an estimated 3,000 to 49,000 die, making the flu one of the chief causes of preventable death in the USA.
Collins cited the long-term flu shot in a wide-ranging discussion of many advances coming from NIH research. Amid budget debates now underway in Washington, D.C. that could also trim NIH's $31billion budget, he made the case for research investments that improve the nation's health.
A universal flu vaccine "seemed completely out of reach only a few years ago," Collins said. That's because flu viruses mutate yearly, causing small changes in surface coatings, which make old vaccines obsolete.
Recently however, scientists have found "there are parts of the viral coat that don't change …. If you designed a vaccine to go after the constant part of the virus, you'd be protected against all strains," Collins said.
A universal flu vaccine is "not a question of whether, but when," says Arnold Monto, of the University of Michigan. "I think five years is a bit ambitious, given where we are now."
Scientists around the world are working on the problem. In February, researchers in the United Kingdom reported preliminary success developing a universal flu vaccine in humans.
Collins pointed to other advances springing from investment in biomedical research:
• Alzheimer's studies suggest inflammation, rather than brain-tangling proteins, triggers many cases of the dementia that afflicts more than 5million, according to NIH.
• Diabetes research is finding that exercise and nutrition coaching is more effective at checking symptoms than drug treatment.
•HIV studies suggest screening everyone in the country for HIV could lead to early treatment to prevent some of the 56,000 new cases each year.
"We might be able to end this epidemic," Collins said. Given that the lifetime cost of HIV/AIDS treatment is $1million — a total of $56billion to treat just the newly infected each year — universal screening "begins to look cost-effective." He cautioned there is no proposal for such screening.
NIH already runs pilot programs to test and treat high-risk people in Washington, D.C. and the Bronx, N.Y., says Anthony Fauci, head of NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "Scientifically, we know it works."
By Dan Vergano and Liz Szabo taken from http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/medical/coldflu/story/2011/07/Long-term-universal-flu-shot-on-horizon/49671698/1
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