Although hard to believe antibodies from survivors of the most devastating 1918 influenza pandemic still protect against the virus a report published in the newest edition of the journal Nature offering a new perspective on how time may affect the human immune system or not.

Dr. James E. Crowe Jr., professor of pediatrics, microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt University and his colleagues studied blood samples from 32 people born before 1915 and found that all of them presented antibodies to the 1918 flu virus and some of them were still producing them. More exactly, in their experiments with mice, the researchers discovered that these antibodies continue to protect the mice from infection with the 1918 flu strain.

“It was very surprising that these subjects would still have cells floating in their blood so long afterward. The antibodies that we isolated are remarkable antibodies. They grab onto the virus tightly and they virtually never fall off. That allows them to kill the 1918 virus with extreme potency, meaning it takes a very small amount of antibodies,” Crowe said.

The 1918 flu killed about 50 million people on global levels and nearly everybody else was exposed to the virus. The discovery is the more surprising as most health care providers believe that the elderly have low immunity systems. The study demonstrated that even 90 years later, people were still producing antibodies to the virus.

The researchers said the findings are very important as they could have implications for new pandemic viruses.

“This study shows that humans can develop very potent immune responses against dangerous influenza that cause pandemics. It gives us hope that we can develop vaccines and antibody treatments for any other pandemic viruses that come along,” Crowe said.

There were people who somehow questioned the findings of this study saying that these people might have been infected with a less deadly strain of flu before 1918. One of them was Dr. Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine in New York City who believes, “the implication of this study is the 1918 virus was so powerful that the immunity you had to have in order to survive was so prominent that it lasted for the rest of your life,” Dr. Diegel said.

Dr. Crowe said that his team is now working to get antibodies from people vaccinated with experimental vaccines for the H5N1 avian influenza currently circulating in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. H5N1 is known to affect especially birds but it has also infected 385 people since 2003, when it was first spotted. About 243 people died after being infected with this virus. Scientists fear that H5N1 strain of avian influenza would mutate into a form that could pass easily among people sparking another pandemic.