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“Think about that,” Dr. Osterholm said. “Even though they were old, they were still protected. We’ve got to figure out how to capture that kind of immunity — which current vaccines do not.”

Dr. Bresee acknowledged the difficulties, saying: “If I had the perfect answer as to how to make a better flu vaccine, I’d probably get a Nobel Prize.”

a preliminary study rated this year’s vaccine as 62 percent effective, even though it is a good match for the most worrisome virus circulating.

urged Americans to keep getting flu shots.

Even though deaths stepped — barely — into epidemic territory for the first time last Saturday, the C.D.C. officials expressed no alarm, and said it was possible that new flu infections were peaking in some parts of the country.

Epidemiologists count how many death certificates are filed in a flu year, compare the number with normal years, and estimate what percentage were probably flu-related.

The C.D.C.’s vaccine effectiveness study bore out the point of view of a report released last year by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. It said that the shot’s effectiveness had been “overpromoted and overhyped,” said Michael T. Osterholm, the center’s director.

At the same time, he praised the C.D.C. for measuring vaccine effectiveness in midseason. “We’re the only ones in the world who have data like that,” he said.

“To get a vaccine across the ‘Valley of Death’ is likely to cost $1 billion,”

the metric means the shot “reduces by 62 percent your chance of getting a flu so bad that you have to go to a doctor or hospital.”

“far from perfect, but by far the best tool we have to prevent influenza.”

Most vaccinations given in childhood for threats like measles and diphtheria are 90 percent effective or better. But flu viruses mutate so fast that they must be remade annually.

Foreign immunogens or peptides can be displayed on the envelope of AcMNPV by fusion with the baculovirus major envelope protein gp64

Baculoviruses have strong adjuvant activity to promote humoral and cellular immune responses against coadministered antigens, activate dendritic cells maturation, induce the production of cytokines, chemokines, and type I IFNs

There are two influenza vaccine approaches licensed in the US; the inactivated, split vaccine and the live-attenuated virus vaccine. Inactivated vaccines can efficiently induce humoral immune responses but generally only poor cellular immune responses.

Therefore, influenza HA can be displayed on the surface of baculovirus

virus-like particle (VLP)

Even though cellular immune responses cannot confer sterilizing immunity, they are able to reduce the severity of infection and lower morbidity and mortality rates [47], and antigen-specific memory T cells are able to rapidly respond to a secondary virus infection [45]. Furthermore, cellular immune responses to the conserved epitopes contained in vaccines may provide cross-protective immunity against different subtypes of influenza virus infection

To confirm that each HA was incorporated on the envelope of baculoviruses, supernatants from infected Sf9 cells were used to perform hemagglutination assay

Most BV display strategies rely on gp64 protein which is the major envelope protein of baculovirus.

Influenza A viruses show pronounced genetic variation of the surface glycoproteins HA and NA

the factors that determine airborne transmission of influenza viruses among mammals, a trait necessary for a virus to become pandemic, have remained largely unknown (18–21)

Another option for those who want to reduce their risk of influenza and flulike infections may be simply this: Wash your hands more often. There is good evidence this works.

“It does not protect as promoted. It’s all a sales job: it’s all public relations.”