Vaccine News and Research

Latest Vaccine News and Research

Whooping cough alert sounded again

GPs have again been urged to report cases of whooping cough to the Health Protection Agency and step up vaccination efforts, as the number of confirmed cases continues to rise.

9 Jul 2012

PCV13 offers best overall protection from CAP in young children

Researchers have identified a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine that is effective for treating bacteremic pneumococcal community-acquired pneumonia in children aged 5 years or younger.

9 Jul 2012

HPV vaccine shows evidence of herd protection

The HPV vaccine not only has resulted in a decrease in human papillomavirus infection in immunized teens but also in teens who were not immunized.

9 Jul 2012

PsiOxus closes Series B round of equity financing

PsiOxus Therapeutics, Ltd. announced that it has closed a Series B round of equity financing totaling £22 million ($34 million).

9 Jul 2012

New somatostatin vaccines promote weight loss

New vaccines promote weight loss. A new study, published in BioMed Central's open access journal, Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology, assesses the effectiveness of two somatostatin vaccinations, JH17 and JH18, in reducing weight gain and increasing weight loss in mice.

9 Jul 2012

UNN, UM establish firm foundation for mutual collaborations

A delegation from the University of Nigeria (UNN) has just completed a week in key laboratories and boardrooms at the University of Maryland's Baltimore campus exploring educational exchanges between the two universities.

8 Jul 2012

New vaccine candidate against leading cause of hospital-acquired infections

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have discovered a new vaccine candidate for the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa taking advantage of a new mechanism of immunity.

7 Jul 2012

Myths about drive-thru influenza immunization clinics

Critics have pointed to fainting risks and subsequent auto accidents as reasons for concern when using drive-thru influenza immunization clinics, according to Ruth Carrico, PhD, RN, FSHEA, CIC, associate professor, division of infectious diseases, University of Louisville School of Medicine.

6 Jul 2012

Longer looks: The man behind the 'Personhood' crusade; Atul Gawande on SCOTUS; 'No One Dies Alone' program

In the four years since Mason launched the pro-life group Personhood USA, he has been crisscrossing the country to convince voters that the best way to overturn Roe v. Wade, the ruling that legalized abortion, is to define human embryos as people from the moment of fertilization. ... Mason, the man at the heart of the maelstrom, is part preacher, part hipster.

6 Jul 2012

Live zoster vaccine associated with reduced risk of HZ in patients with immune-mediated diseases

Although some have suggested that patients receiving medication for immune-mediated diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or psoriasis may be at increased risk of herpes zoster (HZ; shingles) shortly after receipt of the vaccine, an analysis that included nearly 20,000 vaccinated Medicare beneficiaries finds that the live zoster vaccine is not associated with an increased risk of HZ shortly after vaccination in patients currently treated with biologics, and that it is associated with a significantly reduced longer-term risk of HZ in patients with an immune-mediated disease, according to a study in the July 4 issue of JAMA.

4 Jul 2012

Polio elimination hindered by unvaccinated children in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Too few children have received sufficient doses of vaccine to wipe out polio in Pakistan and Afghanistan, two of only three countries in the world where endemic polio has yet to be eliminated, according to new research published Online First in The Lancet. The findings suggest that the newly introduced bivalent oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) has the potential to eliminate polio in these countries if sufficient numbers of children could be reached by vaccination programmes.

4 Jul 2012

Shingles vaccine may not increase risk of varicella in people with auto-immune diseases

New research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham casts doubt on the long-standing belief that the vaccine for shingles should not be given to patients taking biologics for auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.

4 Jul 2012

Nicotine addiction: An interview with Dr. Crystal

Cigarette smoking and nicotine addiction are widespread problems throughout the world. Many people continue to smoke despite high taxes and the available public information on the dangers of smoking.

3 Jul 2012

Research highlights three factors that could determine outbreak of pandemic flu

A major collaboration between US research centers has highlighted three factors that could ultimately determine whether an outbreak of influenza becomes a serious epidemic that threatens national health. The research suggests that the numbers in current response plans could be out by a factor of two or more depending on the characteristics of the particular pandemic influenza.

3 Jul 2012

IRIN examines antibiotic resistance, efforts to discover new drugs

IRIN examines a global increase in resistance to antibiotics, writing, "Almost one in every five deaths worldwide occurs as a result of infection, but many bacterial illnesses will become incurable as the efficacy of current antibiotic drugs wanes, according to the World Health Organization (WHO)."

3 Jul 2012

Latest vaccine indications available through ACP Immunization Advisor app

The latest vaccine indications are available for doctors and other clinicians through the ACP Immunization Advisor app currently available for iPhone and iPad at http://immunization.acponline.org/app.

3 Jul 2012

ImmunoCellular to expand ICT-107 Phase IIb trial on GBM

ImmunoCellular Therapeutics, Ltd., a clinical stage biotechnology company that is focused on developing new immune-based products to treat cancer, announced today that it will expand its current Phase IIb trial of ICT-107 from 102 to up to 123 patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and who are HLA-A1/A2 positive.

2 Jul 2012

New study lessens concerns about dengue vaccine production costs

"Research funded by the Dengue Vaccine Initiative (DVI) involving an economic analysis of producing a tetravalent dengue vaccine shows that the cost could be as low as $0.20 per dose with an annual production level of 60 million doses packaged in 10-dose vials," a Sabin Vaccine Institute press release reports.

30 Jun 2012

Gates Foundation plans to invest in biotech companies to improve global access to treatments, vaccines for infectious diseases

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation "plans to take equity stakes in up to a dozen biotech companies this year, signaling a shift towards a 'venture capital' approach at the world's biggest philanthropic organization" and "marking a further move away from its traditional approach of grant-giving and towards a more business-oriented way to support the development of treatments and vaccines for infectious diseases affecting the world's poor," the Financial Times reports.

29 Jun 2012

Cost of dengue vaccine production could be as low as $0.20 per dose

Research funded by the Dengue Vaccine Initiative (DVI) involving an economic analysis of producing a tetravalent dengue vaccine shows that the cost could be as low as $0.20 per dose with an annual production level of 60 million doses packaged in ten-dose vials. The study used data on a vaccine developed by US NIH and the facilities of the Instituto Butantan in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

29 Jun 2012