Increasing doses of an inactivated influenza A/H1N1 vaccine induce increasing levels of cross-reacting antibody to subsequent, antigenically different, variants.

Immunization approaches that will broaden antibody responses to antigenically different variants of influenza viruses are needed because vaccine strains do not always match the viruses that circulate during the subsequent epidemic. Sera collected from subjects who were vaccinated with various doses of influenza A/Taiwan/86 vaccine were assayed for the levels of antibody against 3 subsequent, antigenically different, A/H1N1 variants. Dose-related increases in antibody responses to all 4 viruses were observed, even against a virus appearing >10 years after vaccination. Increasing the influenza vaccine dosage safely and predictably enhanced antibody responses to the vaccine virus and to subsequent, antigenically different, influenza A/H1N1 variants.