Vaccine News and Research

Latest Vaccine News and Research

NPR's 'Shots' blog examines cholera epidemic in Haiti; U.N. SG calls for continued international support of country

NPR's "Shots" blog examines the cholera epidemic in Haiti and addresses the controversy surrounding the U.N.'s role in the outbreak, noting, "Most scientists now think Nepalese soldiers unwittingly brought cholera to Haiti when they joined a U.N. peacekeeping force there in 2010."

16 Jan 2013

Research roundup: Effectiveness of mobile clinics; Can more alternative medicine coverage save money?

Approximately 2,000 mobile health clinics in the U.S. have 6.5 million patient visits annually. Researchers analyzed data from nearly 6,000 patients from 2010 to 2012 from one program, to examine the clinical impact and cost-effectiveness.

15 Jan 2013

Viewpoints: The country's deep health problems; Anthem's Rx policy in Calif. may not be legal; Wis. Gov. Medicaid decision looming

It is now shockingly clear that poor health is a much broader and deeper problem than past studies have suggested. An authoritative report issued by the Institute of Medicine this week found that, on average, Americans experience higher rates of disease and injury and die sooner than people in other high-income countries.

15 Jan 2013

Early hepatitis B vaccination may be ineffective in teenagers

Research reveals that many infants who receive the complete series of hepatitis B virus vaccinations have lost their protection by the time they reach adolescence.

14 Jan 2013

Less than 45% of children are vaccinated against flu: Study

This year's flu season is in full swing with 41 states now reporting widespread illness. Unfortunately, not enough children are getting the flu shot even though health officials recommend that all children 6 months and older get the vaccine. According to a new study by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, less than 45 percent of children were vaccinated against the flu during a five-year study period.

11 Jan 2013

Multidisciplinary team work on proactive approach to flu vaccine design

An internationally recognized expert in viruses, Robert W. Finberg, MD, the Richard M. Haidack Professor of Medicine and chair and professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, is lead investigator on a $12 million project to develop new ways of predicting how the influenza virus changes and evolves in response to anti-viral drugs and the human immune system. This approach has promise for becoming a pivotal tool in creating a more effective vaccine against the virus.

11 Jan 2013

True solution to cholera is improving access to safe water, sanitation

"Even when it is not covered in the news or noticed by the public, cholera occurs regularly in the developing world, and the annual number of cases reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) has increased over the past few years to more than half a million cases and 7,816 related deaths reported from all regions in 2011," Ronald Waldman of George Washington University, Eric Mintz of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Heather Papowitz of the U.N. Children's Fund write in a New England Journal of Medicine perspective piece.

11 Jan 2013

Additional insights into workings of ALVAC vaccine against HIV

Four years ago, a potential HIV vaccine showed promise against the virus that causes AIDS, but it fell short of providing the broad protection necessary to stem the spread of disease.

11 Jan 2013

Boston declares flu emergency as aggressive viruses spread across the nation

The country is in the grip of three emerging flu or flulike epidemics: an early start to the annual flu season with an unusually aggressive virus, a surge in a new type of norovirus, and the worst whooping cough outbreak in 60 years. And these are all developing amid the normal winter highs for the many viruses that cause symptoms on the "colds and flu" spectrum.

11 Jan 2013

Blog posts call for policy action condemning intelligence community's use of health campaigns

"It remains to be seen if a new surge of efforts -- a letter of protest from leading public health experts, a petition -- asking the Obama Administration to prohibit spies from pretending to be overseas aid and health workers will force a change in policy," Tom Paulson and Tom Murphy write in the Humanosphere blog.

11 Jan 2013

Taking early and repeated WBC is critical in determining infants at high risk of pertussis

A study released today from the upcoming issue of the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (JPIDS) found that taking early and repeated white blood cell counts (WBC) is critical in determining whether infants have pertussis and which of those children are at highest risk of death from the disease.

11 Jan 2013

Pakistan re-launches polio vaccination campaign amid increased security

"Pakistan's ambassador for polio eradication, Aseefa Bhutto Zardari, re-launched the anti-polio campaign in Sindh province on Tuesday," Pakistan Today reports.

11 Jan 2013

TapImmune announces results from HER2/neu interim study on breast cancer

TapImmune Inc. has announced that an interim safety analysis on the first five breast cancer patients treated with HER2/neu Class II antigens at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN., did not show any serious adverse events.

11 Jan 2013

Tips for parents to safely help relieve child's flu symptoms

Doctors' offices are teeming with patients suffering from one of the worst outbreaks of cold and flu season in recent years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that flu is at an elevated level across the nation. Though virus symptoms vary by age, children are especially vulnerable since they are unable to take over-the-counter medications to help alleviate symptoms.

10 Jan 2013

Loyola uses FilmArray Respiratory Panel to screen infectious diseases

Cold, allergies, the flu or something else? Thanks to advanced technology, physicians at Loyola University Health System receive confirmation of their patient's respiratory illness within one hour. Loyola is one of only two hospitals in lllinois to use the FDA-approved FilmArray Respiratory Panel, which screens for 17 viral and 3 bacterial pathogens in about 60 minutes.

10 Jan 2013

MSF, DNDi analysis shows increased investment in NTDs but low number of new therapy approvals

"Over the past decade, neglected diseases have attracted increased attention and larger investments in research," but "a new analysis by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) finds that the rate of approvals for new compounds over the past decade is roughly the same as it was during the previous two-and-a-half decades, when the diseases received little attention," Nature Medicine reports.

10 Jan 2013

Overall cancer death rates continue to decline in the U.S.: Report

The Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2009, shows that overall cancer death rates continued to decline in the United States among both men and women, among all major racial and ethnic groups, and for all of the most common cancer sites, including lung, colon and rectum, female breast, and prostate.

9 Jan 2013

U.S. must take steps to rebuild trust broken by CIA's fake vaccination campaign in Pakistan

"The news that the Central Intelligence Agency had been running a fake vaccination program in Pakistan first surfaced in 2011 and quickly ignited fears that the covert operation could compromise the global campaign to eradicate polio," Lynn Goldman, dean of the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, and Michael Klag, dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, write in a Baltimore Sun opinion piece, noting a number of polio workers have been killed in the country over the last month.

9 Jan 2013

Flusurvey: an interview with Dr Alma Adler

Flusurvey is an online system of tracking influenza across the UK. We are linked to other flu surveys across Europe, so there are about 12 flu surveys across Europe in total.

9 Jan 2013

Public health school deans condemn CIA's use of fake vaccination campaign in letter to Obama

"The deans of the nation's top public health schools sent a letter to President Obama on Monday condemning the Central Intelligence Agency's use of a vaccination campaign ruse in the hunt for Osama bin Laden," the New York Times reports.

9 Jan 2013