Several scientists try to combine flu and coronavirus vaccines into one

The flu campaign will be back in a few months. If the coronavirus vaccine becomes recurrent and we need it every year, the option of combining them is considered.

In the UK, work is already under way to combine the flu vaccine and the Covid-19 vaccine in a single injection, in the event that the coronavirus vaccine must be annual. They’re both RNA couriers.

Combining covid and flu vaccines could save “a lot of time,” said the director of the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Center (VMIC), Matthew Duchars. “It would be much more practical to just have one injection, so that will be one of the aspects that we and the producers will study,” he added.

Founded by several universities in the United Kingdom and with £215 million in public funding, the centre was announced by the Government in 2018, although its construction has accelerated in the wake of the pandemic and will begin in the coming months.

The head of the VMIC indicated that the biotechnology centre, which includes the University of Oxford, Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, will be able to produce about 70 million doses of vaccines over a period of four to five months, once operational.

Duchards noted that the UK already has a guaranteed supply of vaccines by 2021, so production from the new manufacturing site will not be needed until next year.