Nasal Spray Flu Vaccine By U-M Researcher Is 93%...( asal spray that the children in thestu...),Health

"The tri-valent vaccine contains two different A influenza strains and one B strain, and protected children from both the A and B strains circulating last year," Maassab said.

The vaccine, which combines the core of the harmless influenza virus with the covering from a virulent strain, is highly adaptable. "The core virus can be stored until a flu epidemic breaks out and then 'retrofitted' with an outer covering that matches the virus causing the epidemic," Maassab explained.

Maassab, who was a research assistant for Dr. Thomas Francis Jr., founder of the U-M epidemiology department, received his Ph.D. from the School of Public Health in 1956. Just four years later, he isolated the Influenza Type A-Ann Arbor virus and by 1967 had developed a cold-adapted virus that bred well in cooler nasal passages and did not mutate to more dangerous forms. From 1973 to the present, in collaboration with NIAID and more recently, with Aviron, Maassab has been refining the vaccine and proving that it is not virulent to humans.

Aviron expects to file an application with the Food and Drug Administration next summer to license the vaccine for use in children and healthy adults.