Vaccine News and Research

Latest Vaccine News and Research

Genes influence how well you deal with an illness

Australian scientists have discovered that a person's genetic makeup can influence how they are affected by illness - they say a certain genetic vulnerability can amplify an illness.

1 Dec 2008

New study indicates smallpox vaccination effective for decades

Although naturally occurring smallpox was eradicated in 1977, there is concern that bioterrorists might obtain smallpox from a laboratory and release it into the population.

30 Nov 2008

EpiVax receives grant for $390,000 to optimize HIV vaccine delivery

EpiVax, Inc., a leader in the field of computational immunology, announced today that it has received a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to optimize delivery of an HIV vaccine.

26 Nov 2008

Researchers generate synthetic SARS-like bat coronavirus

SARS - severe acute respiratory syndrome - alarmed the world five years ago as the first global pandemic of the 21st century.

25 Nov 2008

Scientists reconstruct bat variant of SARS coronavirus

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Vanderbilt University Medical Center have synthetically reconstructed the bat variant of the SARS coronavirus (CoV) that caused the SARS epidemic of 2003.

25 Nov 2008

Australian scientists discover a way to stop meningitis

Australian scientists have discovered a bacteria which could stop meningitis - the scientists at the University of Western Australia believe their discovery will help researchers understand how the meningitis bacteria infects cells and could lead to the prevention of infections such as meningitis.

25 Nov 2008

Live oral Shigella vaccine licensed to PATH

The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) has licensed a pediatric vaccine against Shigella bacteria to PATH, an international nonprofit group, to support clinical trials, with the goal of developing a vaccine suitable for children in resource-poor countries.

24 Nov 2008

New vaccine principle delivers stronger and faster immune response

A new vaccine principle is being developed by scientists at the University of Copenhagen which - if it works to its full expected potential - could help to save millions of lives and revolutionise current vaccine technology.

24 Nov 2008

Children born four months before height of cold and flu season have a greater risk of developing childhood asthma

It is said that timing is everything, and that certainly appears to be true for autumn infants.

21 Nov 2008

Discovery of new species of Ebola virus

Scientists report the discovery of a new species of Ebola virus, provisionally named Bundibugyo ebolavirus, November 21 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens.

20 Nov 2008

Adults need vaccines to protect from preventable diseases, say medical societies

The American College of Physicians (ACP) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) have released a joint statement on the importance of adult vaccination against an increasing number of vaccine-preventable diseases.

19 Nov 2008

Seniors should have the flu jab this winter, say experts

Despite recent doubts about its effectiveness, the influenza vaccine does give valuable protection against illness, hospital admission and death caused by influenza, and people over 65 should have the flu jab this winter, say experts on bmj.com.

18 Nov 2008

Vaccine-related chronic fatigue syndrome in an individual demonstrating aluminium overload

A team of scientists have investigated a case of vaccine-associated chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and macrophagic myofasciitis in an individual demonstrating aluminium overload.

18 Nov 2008

NCI sponsors Canadian cold/flu remedy trial in leukemia patients

Cancer patients, with their weakened immune systems, are particularly vulnerable when the cold and flu season hits. The National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health and the world's most prestigious cancer research body, is sponsoring a landmark trial to evaluate if a unique Canadian cold remedy - ginseng extract COLD-FX - can help.

18 Nov 2008

One in four Gulf war veterans suffers from illness caused by toxic exposure

At least one in four of the 697,000 U.S. veterans of the 1991 Gulf War suffer from Gulf War illness, a condition caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, including pesticides and a drug administered to protect troops against nerve gas, and no effective treatments have yet been found, a federal panel of scientific experts and veterans concludes in a landmark report released Monday.

17 Nov 2008

Governments urged to take broader perspective when considering whether to fund vaccines

Including quality-of-life impacts in assessments of national vaccination programs would lead to many benefits, including improved productivity and less sick leave for parents, according to an editorial co-authored by a University of New South Wales (UNSW) researcher, that has appeared in the Lancet Infectious Diseases.

17 Nov 2008

Researchers say identifying women with HPV types 16, 18 and 45 could improve early intervention to stop cervical cancer

As testing for high-risk types of the human papillomavirus (HPV) emerges as the gold standard in cervical cancer prevention, scientists are already researching how to determine even more precisely who is most likely to develop the disease and thus are in need of more immediate intervention.

16 Nov 2008

Previously unknown regulatory step during HIV replication provides potential new target for HIV/AIDS therapy

A previously unknown regulatory step during human immunodeficiency (HIV) replication provides a potentially valuable new target for HIV/AIDS therapy, report researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

16 Nov 2008

100,000 saved from dying of tuberculosis

Asma Elsony led the tuberculosis programme in Sudan at the same time as she took her doctoral degree under the supervision of Professor Gunnar Bjune of the Department of General Practice and Community Medicine, University of Oslo in Norway.

13 Nov 2008

Analyses of Merck's HIV vaccine 'Step' study

Results from the Step study, a test-of-concept efficacy study of a Merck & Co., Inc. HIV vaccine candidate, were published online in two papers in The Lancet.

12 Nov 2008