Reproducible and later vaccine strain selection can improve vaccine match to A/H3N2 seasonal influenza viruses.

ABSTRACT: Twice per year, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends strains for seasonal influenza vaccines to ensure vaccine strains match circulating viruses. However, new variants can emerge after vaccine strain selection, leading to mismatches between vaccine and circulating viruses. New vaccine platforms could enable later than currently practiced strain selection, which could reduce mismatch frequency. Here, we investigated whether delaying vaccine strain selection by three months could improve vaccine match. We compared haemagglutinin epitope mutations and hemagglutination inhibition (HI) titers of historical and hypothetical vaccine strains selected using a reproducible method against dominant circulating viruses during 63 influenza seasons in the United States, Europe, and Australia an

SUBMITTER: de Rooij AJH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12638742 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature