The vaccine targets proteins in all types of the virus, instead of being tailored to match individual strains, according to scientists at Oxford University’s Jenner Institute.

The technique could be used to prevent around a billion people a year contracting the disease. Patients who had the jab would be protected for around 10 years.

The vaccine was tested on 11 healthy volunteers, all aged over 50, who were infected with H3N2 flu virus and compared with 11 people who were infected but did not receive the jab.

The research was led by Dr Sarah Gilbert of Oxford’s Jenner Institute.

Adrian Hill, director of Oxford’s Jenner Institute, told the Guardian: “The problem with flu is that you’ve got lots of different strains and they keep changing. Occasionally one comes out of wildfowl or pigs and we’re not immune to it. We need new vaccines and we can’t make them fast enough.”

Dr Gilbert added: “If we were using the same vaccine year in, year out, it would be more like vaccinating against other diseases like tetanus. It would become a routine vaccination that would be manufactured and used all the time at a steady level. We wouldn’t have these sudden demands or shortages – all that would stop.”

During the trial Dr Gilbert vaccinated 11 healthy volunteers and then infected them, along with 11 non-vaccinated volunteers.

She monitored the volunteers’ symptoms twice a day, including runny noses, coughs and sore throats, and weighed tissues to calculate how much mucus they produced.

The vaccine boosts the number of the body’s T-cells, which are important to the body’s immune response, identifying and destroying cells infected by a virus.

The results, though only from a very small sample, showed the vaccine worked as planned with the vaccinated volunteers less likely to get flu and also showing a boost in T-cells.

The results have been sent to a scientific journal, with the next step a field trial to compare several thousand people.