2026-02-20 10:07:59

A single nasal spray vaccine could protect people against colds, flu, COVID-19 and allergies.

Experts at Stanford University, California, have created the “universal vaccine” and tested it on mice, which gave their lungs broad protection for three months.

The rodents were also immune to illnesses, such as pneumonia and COVID-19, as well as allergic reactions to dust mites – a trigger of allergic asthma.

Now, the team is planning human clinical trials, which may require the vaccine to be breathed in through a nebuliser to reach an individual’s lungs.

And if successful, it could be a “major step forward” in protecting millions of people against future pandemics.

Professor Bali Pulendran, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University, thinks it could be available within five years.

He told BBC News: “This vaccine, what we term a universal vaccine, elicits a far broader response that is protective against not just the flu virus, not just the Covid virus, not just the common cold virus, but against virtually all viruses, and as many different bacteria as we’ve tested, and even allergens.

“The principle by which this vaccine works is a radical departure from the principle by which all vaccines have worked so far.”

Researchers are planning human clinical trials where one person is vaccinated, and another is deliberately infected, to see how the bodies cope.

However, ramping up the immune system – which the research team does not think should be permanent, and that a vaccine should complement instead of replacing existing vaccines – could pose issues.

Although Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, hailed the work as “exciting”, he noted to the BBC that “we have to ensure that keeping the body on ‘high alert’ doesn’t lead to friendly fire, where a hyper-ready immune system accidentally triggers unwelcome side effects”.

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