“Considering there are more than 100 types of A and B rhinoviruses,” notes Yury Bochkov, a respiratory virus specialist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, “you would have to put all 100 types in one vial of vaccine in order to enable protection” against just A and B rhinoviruses. Add in all the C rhinovirus types (more than 50), then cram in RSV’s virus types (more than 40), and that same vaccine would have to be packed with more than 200 strains. Even then, it would only offer protection against about two-thirds of all common colds. “That was considered the major obstacle in development of those vaccines,” Bochkov says.
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