Known by acronyms that need no explanation, viruses like Covid, Sars and Ebola conjure up images of medics in protective suits and spark fear in populations worldwide.

Vaccines for individual viruses have provided some relief, but new strains pose a constant challenge.

Now, new AI-aided vaccine technology developed by scientists at Cambridge University offer potential immunity against whole families of viruses and could even prevent the next pandemic, according to researchers.

Professor Jonathan Heeney of Cambridge University likened the new technique to having the “master key” for an apartment block.

The main problem with vaccines, he said, was that they were “all historic” so the strain you are vaccinated with might not be the one you end up being exposed to in six months time.

Vaccines were “always chasing the virus”, the project lead researcher told AFP in an interview.

“So we’re getting rid of that variability by making something that’s across the board recognisable by your immune system that should cover you from all these eventualities … a real big paradigm change,” he said.

Canadian Heeney, of the lab of viral zoonotics at Cambridge University’s Department of Veterinary Medicine, began work on the project after the 2013-16 Ebola outbreak in west Africa where he was then based.

Ebola had previously been seen in the central African Democratic Republic of Congo, not in west Africa and it was initially misidentified as lassa fever, gastroenteritis or cholera.

The west African outbreak eventually claimed around 11,300 lives, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

But Heeney said three or four months were spent trying to discover what it was before work could even begin on a vaccine.

“In that time, it spread from Guinea, to Sierra Leone to Liberia, three different countries quickly. The horse had bolted, the fire was raging,” he said, adding many health workers were among the victims.

Returning to Cambridge after the west African outbreak, Heeney said there was a determination that “we’ve got to change the way this works, we can’t go through it again”.

Read More: ‘Master key’ vaccine technique may ‘prevent next pandemic’: researchers