Vaccine News and Research

Latest Vaccine News and Research

A new strategy to protect against HIV infection

An effective vaccine against HIV-1 remains elusive, but one promising strategy focuses on designer antibodies that have much broader potency than most normal, exquisitely specific antibodies.

29 Mar 2013

Stronger protections needed to prevent hepatitis in HIV patients

Stronger protections are needed to prevent people with HIV from also becoming infected with hepatitis, researchers argue in a new study led by Michigan State University.

28 Mar 2013

Bill Gates tours Ghana's health system, discusses polio eradication

Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, "is currently in Ghana to assess the country's health systems," Ventures Africa reports. Gates "touched down in Accra March 25, 2013, and says he is in Ghana to get firsthand information on why the country's immunization system is working so well," the news service notes (3/26).

28 Mar 2013

CureVac begins CV9104 Phase 2b clinical trial in patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer

CureVac GmbH, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company that has pioneered the development of a new class of therapies and vaccines based on messenger RNA, today announced that it has initiated a double-blind, randomized Phase 2b clinical trial of its RNActive cancer vaccine, CV9104, for the treatment of patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer.

28 Mar 2013

IRIN examines Lancet series on TB

IRIN examines The Lancet series on tuberculosis, saying that authors writing in the collection of articles note that investments in TB since 1993, when the WHO declared the disease a global emergency, "have led to the most promising pool of new tuberculosis drug and vaccine candidates in more than 40 years, with several new drugs and drug regimens poised to enter late-stage clinical trials throughout the next few years."

28 Mar 2013

Researchers examine performance of Africa's expanded programme on immunization

In a paper published in PLoS Medicine last week, researchers from the Vaccines for Africa Initiative at the University of Cape Town's Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine examine the performance of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) in Africa since its inception in 1974.

27 Mar 2013

Study aims to improve long-term health outcomes for young cancer survivors

The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Survivorship Program and its directors, K. Scott Baker, M.D. and Karen Syrjala, Ph.D., have been selected to lead a nationwide study that aims to improve long-term health outcomes for cancer survivors between the ages of 18 and 39.

27 Mar 2013

FDA clears Soligenix's IND application for SGX942 for treatment of oral mucositis

Soligenix, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, announced today that the Food and Drug Administration has completed its review and cleared the Investigational New Drug application for SGX942 for the treatment of oral mucositis resulting from radiation and/or chemotherapy treatment in head and neck cancer patients.

27 Mar 2013

U.S. Office of Global Health Diplomacy should lead G20 efforts to ensure global NTD drug coverage

"Because they strike mostly forgotten people living on less than $2 per day, [neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)] have traditionally been thought of as a problem exclusive to low-income countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa," Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and president and director of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, writes in a Foreign Policy opinion piece

27 Mar 2013

South Africa to expand rollout of new TB testing machine, but concerns remain about capacity issues

"South Africa will expand its rollout of GeneXpert tuberculosis testing machines, which can diagnose TB and drug-resistant TB within 90 minutes, but concerns remain about the capacity to back up this commitment with supplies and treatment," IRIN reports.

27 Mar 2013

Bill Gates reflects on visit to Ghana to learn about immunization program

"I arrive in Ghana today to see firsthand why the country's immunization system is working so well and meet the people involved," Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, writes in the foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog.

27 Mar 2013

Researchers find HPV vaccination disparities among low-income females

Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at the University of Florida studied health care providers to determine the factors associated with disparities in Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination among girls, ages 9 to 17, from low-income families.

27 Mar 2013

Focused approach needed to end TB

Addressing the question of whether the international community can eliminate tuberculosis, Arundhati Maitra and Sanjib Bhakta of the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of London write in an opinion piece in the AlertNet News Blog, "With an estimated 8.7 million reported cases and 1.4 million deaths due to TB in 2011, the question above poses one of the most serious challenges faced by the scientific community, health care industry, government and public organizations worldwide."

26 Mar 2013

Challenges remain in fight against TB, U.N. Secretary-General says

On World Tuberculosis Day, recognized on March 24, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "said that while there has been much progress since the World Health Organization declared TB a global health emergency two decades ago, there are still challenges to be met, mainly stopping the spread of multidrug-resistant TB, also known as MDR-TB, which threatens to reverse the gains achieved in past years," the U.N. News Centre reports.

26 Mar 2013

Blogs address issues surrounding TB, World TB Day

On Sunday, March 24, the international community observed World TB Day. The following is a summary of blog posts published in recognition of the day.

26 Mar 2013

New vaccine proves highly effective against H5N1 virus

Until now most experimental vaccines against the highly lethal H5N1 avian influenza virus have lacked effectiveness. But a new vaccine has proven highly effective against the virus when tested in both mice and ferrets. It is also effective against the H9 subtype of avian influenza.

26 Mar 2013

A new strategy to prevent herpes virus infections

Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered a novel strategy for preventing infections due to the highly common herpes simplex viruses, the microbes responsible for causing genital herpes (herpes simplex virus 2) and cold sores (herpes simplex virus 1).

26 Mar 2013

Viewpoints: Health law offers 'lifeline' to many; National exchange could solve many problems with state insurance; Contrasting looks at faulty hip replacements

Republican leaders in Congress regularly denounce the 2010 Affordable Care Act and vow to block money to carry it out or even to repeal it.

26 Mar 2013

Experts to meet in Cape Town to discuss development of vaccines for deadly airborne disease

At a time of growing global concern about the rising level of drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis in South Africa and worldwide, the world's top TB vaccine experts are meeting this week, the first time this scientific forum has been held in Africa, where they will present new research aimed at advancing development of vaccines against the deadly airborne disease.

26 Mar 2013

Researchers test protease inhibitors with potential for prevention, treatment of norovirus infection

A Kansas State University-led team is researching ways to stop the spread of norovirus, a contagious stomach illness that infects one in 15 Americans each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

25 Mar 2013