[Development of influenza vaccines against pandemics]

Influenza vaccine plays a crucial role as an effective measure for control of worldwide influenza pandemics. Currently licensed inactivated influenza vaccines can be used for the pandemic situation. Surveillance to isolate animal influenza viruses as vaccine candidate strains greatly contributes to the rapid production of vaccine. The reverse genetics approach can afford to attenuate a highly virulent virus by genetic engineering of any viral genes for the use of vaccine strain. The other approach to develop influenza vaccine should be encouraged to overcome the disadvantage of currently used inactivated vaccine.