This has been a bad flu season, both here and across the country.

Arizona has reported widespread influenza activity; during the week of Feb. 11-17, the state Health Department reported nearly 1,000 lab-confirmed cases of the flu. That number is closer to 25,000 cases for the flu season, which began on Oct. 1.

But public health officials are working on something they think could, in the future, bring those numbers way down: a universal flu vaccine, which would inoculate people against most, if not all different versions of the flu.

One of those public health officials is Dr. Anthony Fauci, who joins me. He’s director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.