60 Minutes: The 'game-changer' flu vaccine to protect Australians for up to 10 years

Doctors have developed a universal flu vaccine that will protect Australians for up to 10 years.

Tonight in a special 60 Minutes health investigation, Director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, Dr Antony Fauci, said that he’s confident a universal flu vaccine with a much higher rate of efficacy will soon be available.

“It’s a game-changer as far as I’m concerned,” Dr Fauci told 60 Minutes reporter Karl Stefanovic.

“Influenza can be prevented to a certain extent by vaccines, it isn’t a perfect vaccine – at best it’s 60 percent effective.

“But if we get an 80 to 90 percent effective influenza vaccine, that's a game-changer.”

Dr Fauci and his team hope that the yearly flu jab will be a thing of the past with the universal vaccine expected to protect against illness for up to ten years.

“What we're trying to do with the universal flu vaccine is to get away from the necessity of changing it each year,” he said.

“Tetanus is a very good vaccine, but you have to give everyone a boost every ten years.

“If we can get to the point where we get one that is very broad in its protection that would be a very good goal to achieve.”

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The latest developments from Dr Fauci’s team come one year after Australia’s deadliest flu season.

Last year, 1127 Australians lost their lives when the lethal strain of influenza – the H3N2 – struck.

It was a tragic occurrence which could have been prevented had better vaccination technologies been available.

Currently, the yearly flu vaccine is produced in a process which is largely a guessing game.

Scientists predict the upcoming season’s strain and make a vaccine accordingly, growing the virus in eggs.

Dr Fauci says the high rates of illness and deaths seen in last year’s flu season were due to a mismatched vaccine.

“The 2017-2018 influenza season clearly, was the worst influenza season that we’ve had,” said Dr Fauci.

“The problem that happened last year was that when the virus was put into the eggs, in the process of mutating and adapting itself to being able to efficiently grow in eggs, it changed enough that it became a mismatch.

“This led to a very low efficacy of the vaccine against H3N2 in Australia.”

While the current flu vaccine is far from perfect, Dr Fauci says that this should not deter Australians from having their yearly jab.  

“Even when (vaccines) don't prevent infection, they’ll prevent you from going onto a serious complication.

“The recommendation in the United States is that anyone six months or age or older should be vaccinated.”

“If we vaccinated more people, we would save more lives.”

For more on 60 Minutes and to watch the full story ‘Deadly Danger’ head to 9Now.