(ANSA) - SYDNEY, 18 OCT - The new method of producing anti-influenza vaccines based on cell culture offers important advantages over the method based on egg cultivation, in use for half a century. International research led by the Doherty Institute in Melbourne indicates that it can provide greater protection for children and may replace the traditional one.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, collected data from more than 4,500 participants in eight countries across three flu seasons, and concluded that the cell culture-based quadrivalent influenza vaccine demonstrated an 'absolute efficacy' rate up to 55% in children as young as two, as well as significantly improving production times.
Research leader Terry Nolan, Doherty's Vaccine and Immunization Research Group and University of Melbourne lecturer, writes that the egg-based formulation has been the mainstay of influenza vaccine production for decades, but shows important limitations. .
"In recent years it has become evident that egg-based culture to produce the vaccine may not be effective on the specific strain in circulation it should target. Cell-based culture is much more efficient in terms of both yield and buildability. It is inevitable that all influenza vaccines in the future will be produced with this more modern approach, "he adds.
Unlike Covid, which children can contract and transmit but to a limited extent, in the case of the flu virus, children are the predominant circulators.
They share it very quickly with each other and then infect adults, Nolan explains.
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