 Influenza, commonly known as “the flu,” is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae (the influenza viruses). Common symptoms of the disease are chills and fever, sore throat, muscle pain, severe headache and coughing. In more serious cases, influenza causes pneumonia, which can be fatal, particularly in young children and the elderly where it is associated with as many as 30,000 deaths per year in the United States despite the availability and widespread use of vaccines.
The most common human vaccine is the trivalent influenza vaccine that contains purified and inactivated material from three viral strains. Typically, this vaccine includes material from two influenza A virus subtypes and one influenza B virus strain. A vaccine formulated for one year may be ineffective in the following year, since the influenza virus changes rapidly over time, and different strains become dominant.
LigoCyte has developed a highly effective chimeric virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine against influenza. This VLP vaccine has characteristics that offer significant improvements over the currently available commercial products, including the potential to offer better protection against seasonal changes in the virus. Click Here to download a summary of LigoCyte’s influenza vaccine. |
