(UPI) - Last year's H1N1 pandemic flu vaccine protects against 1918 influenza virus in mice, U.S. researchers found.

Adolfo Garcia-Sastre of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and colleagues said groups of mice were exposed to lethal amounts of the 1918 influenza virus 14 or 28 days after being injected with the H1N1 influenza vaccine, a seasonal H3N2 influenza vaccine not designed to protect against H1N1 virus, or no vaccine.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, found all of the H1N1-vaccinated mice survived, but all of the unvaccinated mice and all mice that received the H3N2 vaccine died.

In addition, 80 percent of a group of mice vaccinated with a seasonal flu vaccine designed to protect against a 2007 strain of H1N1 survived, the study said.

Photo Copyright Mario Villafuerte

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