Successfully prepared vaccines against many respiratory diseases at the same time

Australian scientists have successfully prepared a vaccine that can fight many deadly respiratory diseases at the same time.

The team, from the University of Adelaide's Center for Infectious Diseases, said the vaccine could simultaneously prevent influenza and pneumococcal infections, which have killed millions of people every year.

Mohammed Alsharifi and James Paton, the leaders of the research group, claim that the vaccine could address the limitations of today's vaccines.

This vaccine has significantly enhanced immunity to many different types of flu.

They found that influenza A vaccine is more likely to help protect against other flu strains when combined with pneumococcal vaccines.

Alsharifi said the flu infection caused patients with severe pneumococcal pneumonia with a high death rate.

Despite understanding this mechanism, current vaccines only help prevent individual diseases.

Alsharifi researcher is examining the ability to combine influenza and pneumococcal vaccines into a single vaccine. The results show that this vaccine has significantly enhanced immunity to many different types of flu.

According to researcher James Paton, the flu virus along with pneumococcus caused the deaths of 100 million people in the Spanish Flu pandemic from 1918-1919.

After a century, researchers have found vaccines that have good protection and help fight these two diseases at the same time.

Previous research by the team also found that pneumococcal vaccine efficacy will be greatly enhanced when combined with influenza vaccines.