[Influenza virus vaccines]

Influenza, despite the wide availability of vaccines, is still the one infectious disease with the highest mortality. In official statistics many thousands of influenza deaths are ascribed to other diseases (respiratory, heart, circulatory diseases) which, in reality, are triggered by influenza virus. Influenza virus appears in ever changing and new antigenic forms against which there is little or no immunity. Past failures in the battle against the disease may have been due to poor vaccines and limited vaccination strategies: vaccination of narrowly limited populations with vaccines that often are only poorly antigenic; frequent changing from one vaccine strain to another and the inherent problem of inadequate vaccine supplies for timely wide-scale public health campaigns; and the unjustified expectation that influenza virus vaccines will afford protection against non-influenza virus-induced influenza-like disease. Potent whole virus influenza vaccines should be given a chance in broad-scale vaccination programs designed to interrupt the spread of the virus and provide an immunological base against future virus variants.