In what can be seen as a notable step in the fighting against flu, a disease that affects billions of people each year, scientists at the Oxford University have successfully tested a ‘universal’ flu vaccine that can apparently work against all the presently-known strains of the illness.

As compared to the traditional flu vaccines, the ‘universal’ vaccine chiefly targets a different part of the flu virus; and it does not require any expensive annual reformulation to fight the most rampant virus circulating in the world at any particular time.

Specifically speaking, the ‘universal’ flu vaccine – which has been developed by a team led by Dr Sarah Gilbert at Oxford's Jenner Institute - targets some common ‘stable’ proteins within the flu virus that are essentially common to all strains, rather than targeting the ‘mutating’ proteins that sit on the external coat of the virus.

Since the main problem with flu is that there are “lots of different strains and they keep changing” – as Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute, has put it -, a ‘universal’ flu vaccine could not only prevent pandemics, but also end the need for a seasonal flu vaccination.

Talking about the successful tests of the ‘universal’ flu vaccine, Gilbert said: “Our hope is to develop a vaccine that works against all strains of influenza A and all subtypes so we won't need to keep making new flu vaccines each year and new flu vaccines when there is a pandemic.”