Improvement to flu vaccination could keep older people healthy during winter months

A new drug has the potential to increase the protection older people receive against seasonal flu and other infections, researchers from the University of Oxford have said.

Researchers are looking into the compound, called spermidine, to determine if it could be added to flu jabs to stop the decline of older people’s immune systems.

Professor Katja Simon, senior author of the study, from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Human Immunology Unit at Oxford University, said: “Viral infections like flu are unpleasant for most people, but can be very serious for the over-65s and vaccines, like the free annual flu jab, are the best form of protection. Our aim is to make that protection even better, by adding immune boosting compounds to routine vaccinations.”

Currently being tested on mince, the drug boosts a vital part of the immune system which lowers as age increases, preventing older people from having a strong immune response to a virus even if they have had it before or been vaccinated against.

It is hoped the drug will improve the ageing immune system’s ability to respond to the flu vaccine to minimise the number of older people who develop serious or fatal responses to seasonal infections.

First author of the study Daniel Puleston, a PhD student from the MRC Human Immunology Unit at Oxford University, said: “We already know that the over 65s have a problem forming an immune memory and as a consequence infection causes proportionally more deaths in this age group. We’ve now identified a key process involved in this memory formation, and by enhancing this process in aged mice we’ve been able to boost their immune response to vaccination.

“The effect was so powerful that the treated mice mounted an even stronger T cell response to the vaccine than young mice. It’s the equivalent of a 90 year old responding to a vaccine better than a 20 year old, which makes this a very exciting pathway to target as a potential way of boosting vaccine protection in the elderly.”