Scientists discover new way to fight flu – and it may also eventually work on Covid-19

Scientists say they have discovered a groundbreaking way to stop flu in its tracks when someone becomes infected.

The American researchers say it could lead to highly effective ways to treat flu, which could lead to science seeing off the virus for ever.

The finding may also apply to other respiratory viruses, such as Sars-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, they believe.

Flu vaccines, which teach the body’s immune system how to recognise and attack the virus when it enters the body, are not always effective.

The new research, published in the journal Viruses, does not rely on the immune system to stop the virus.

Instead, the treatment blocks one strain of the influenza virus from accessing a human protein that it needs to replicate in cells.

To make a person sick, the virus will infect cells in the body, where it replicates.

Up to 1,600 people die of flu in England and Wales each year, according to the Office for National Statistics. They are mostly elderly and other vulnerable people.

Jiayu Liao, an associate professor of bioengineering at University of California, Riverside, had previously discovered that the two most common types of flu virus, influenza A and influenza B, require a unique human protein to proliferate.

Now, with colleagues, he has identified a way to prevent influenza B viruses from replicating by blocking this necessary protein. Without it, virus amplification is blocked completely in cells, the team say.

The influenza B virus uses a human cellular process called SUMOylation to modify a gene called M1, which plays various roles in the influenza viral life cycle.

Prof Liao’s experiments found that an inhibitor of that process can completely block influenza B virus replication.

Influenza A could also be susceptible to the inhibitor, according to the researchers.

They say that although more work is needed for a thorough understanding of the process, the finding brings science “one big step closer to making flu flee for ever”.

They wrote that their discovery “holds great promise for revealing new strategies for anti-infectives”.