Scientists have taken a key step towards finding a universal flu vaccine, it was announced last night.
The first step will be to create therapies for treatment of severe infection and to protect hospital staff during an outbreak, researchers say.
The three human antibodies, revealed by the journal Science, provide protection against influenza B virus.
The same researchers have already found antibodies that work against influenza A.
But they say one of the newly discovered antibodies may protect against all strains of both influenza A and B.
Influenza A is the most common and deadly form of the disease, responsible for H1N1 swine flu, bird flu and other strains that cause occasional scares.
But the researchers say the B kind is responsible for a "significant" amount of illness in humans.
Both mutate extensively in the course of a year, meaning that vaccines last for very little time.
The research has been undertaken in California, USA, in Denmark and the Netherlands and in Hong Kong.
Researcher Professor Ian Wilson, of Scripps Research, La Jolla, California, USA, said: "To develop a truly universal flu vaccine or therapy, one needs to be able to provide protection against influenza A and influenza B viruses, and with this report we now have broadly neutralising antibodies against both."
Highly conserved protective epitopes on Influenza B viruses. Science August 10 2012
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