A single-shot vaccine under development could protect against flu, COVID-19, and RSV. Flu season is no longer just flu season. Since 2022, the health care community has faced what’s known as a “tripledemic” of seasonal influenza, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). That may mean that the flu shot needs to become more than a flu shot.
Study in Science Advances
In a study in Science Advances, researchers found that their three-in-one vaccine triggered protective immunity against all three respiratory diseases in mice, ferrets, and cotton rats. “The antibody responses were comparable to those produced by vaccines that target just a single virus, suggesting that combining the three vaccines into one shot did not weaken their effectiveness,” says corresponding author Jonathan Lovell, a professor in the biomedical engineering department.
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The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and a McGill University grant. The tripledemic was associated with approximately 1 million combined hospitalizations in the United States during the 2023–2024 respiratory virus season alone. Despite the risks, only 35% of Americans aged 75 and older had received an influenza vaccine as of November 2024.
Vaccination Rates
About 18% had received a COVID-19 vaccine, while 40% had received an RSV vaccine.
The single-shot vaccine is under development to protect against flu, COVID-19, and RSV.
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The CoPoP Platform
Dubbed “CoPoP,” the vaccine platform was used in the study. For this study, Lovell’s team used CoPoP to package five viral proteins—three influenza proteins and proteins from SARS-CoV-2 and RSV—into a single vaccine. To make the vaccine more potent, they also added immune-boosting ingredients known as PHAD and QS-21 to the CoPoP platform.
“CoPoP is a really flexible formulation that allows multiple viral proteins to be incorporated at once,” Lovell says. CoPoP was also utilized for a COVID-19 vaccine candidate that advanced through phase 2 and phase 3 clinical trials in South Korea and the Philippines. That work was a partnership between UB spinoff company POP Biotechnologies, Inc. (POP BIO), cofounded by Lovell, and South Korean company EuBiologics.
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Differences in Approach
Because it uses viral proteins rather than genetic instructions, the CoPoP approach differs from the most widely used COVID-19 vaccines, which rely on mRNA technology. The team found no evidence of immune interference, in which one vaccine component reduces the immune response to another.
However, the researchers stress that additional studies are needed to determine whether subtle interactions among the different vaccine components could affect immune responses under different dosing conditions. “We are hopeful that this platform could be expanded further to protect against an even wider range of respiratory viruses in the future,” Lovell says.