1918 Flu Survivors Source Of New Antibody Research
Posted on: Monday, 18 August 2008, 10:00 CDT
Researchers reported on Sunday that survivors of the devastating 1918 influenza pandemic are still protected from the virus.
People who lived through the outbreak can still produce antibodies that kill the deadly strain of the H1N1 flu, scientists found.
The Spanish flu outbreak of 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people. These survivors, now aged 91 to 101, all lived through the pandemic as children.
The researchers said their immune systems still carry a memory of that virus and can produce proteins called antibodies that kill the 1918 flu strain with surprising efficiency.
Dr. James Crowe of Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, who helped lead the study, said it was very surprising that these subjects would still have cells floating in their blood so long afterward.
When the investigators approached Crowe, whose lab had developed methods of making antibodies, to try to make antibodies to the 1918 flu, he was skeptical, but agreed to try.
"The antibodies that we isolated are remarkable antibodies. They grab onto the virus very tightly and they virtually never fall off," Crowe said.
He said that allows them to kill the 1918 virus with extreme potency, meaning it takes a very small amount of antibody.
The researchers used the antibodies to cure infected mice - showing, they said, that 90 years on, the survivors of the epidemic were still protected.
Mice given the antibodies from the elderly survivors lived, while those given placebos died.
"If we can learn the rules about how these antibodies work we may be able to design antibodies to lots of other viruses,” Crowe said.
Crowe said his team is working to get antibodies from people vaccinated with experimental shots for the H5N1 avian influenza now circulating in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. H5N1 mostly affects birds but it has infected 385 people since 2003, killing 243.
Many experts fear that, like the H1N1 virus did in 1918, H5N1 will mutate into a form that passes easily among people and spark another pandemic.
Scientists do not fully understand why it was so lethal - but they fear a new pandemic, once again triggered by bird flu, could be just as deadly.
"The lessons we are learning about the 1918 flu tell us a lot about what may happen during a future pandemic," Crowe said.
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Image Caption: American Red Cross nurses tend to flu patients in temporary wards set up inside Oakland Municipal Auditorium, 1918
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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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