Authorities fighting Ebola are expressing cautious optimism on containing Goma’s outbreak—but steep challenges remain. By today, all but 5 of 800 contacts of the city’s 3 cases were vaccinated; no additional cases have emerged. Still, health workers face some suspicion…
August 5, 2019
Scientists buffeted by climate change denial and vaccine resistance, take heart: Americans' confidence in scientists is rising, a new Pew Research Center survey shows.
August 2, 2019
A year ago today, the WHO confirmed the first 4 Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s latest outbreak. Back then, hopes were high that a vaccine could squash the outbreak quickly. Experts now say it could drag on for months or years, NPR reports.
August 2, 2019
The nightmare may be happening. 4 Ebola cases have now been confirmed in Goma, a city of 1 million people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Reuters reports. The latest case is the wife of a man who died earlier this week. His daughter also tested positive.…
July 11, 2019
The wild poliovirus continues to grip on Afghanistan and Pakistan, while vaccine-derived polio still stalks Africa—dashing hopes for eradication in 2019. Sobering up to the failure, the global response effort is now debating how to shake the impasse and counter hostile…
June 28, 2019
Viruses are to blame for most of the severe childhood pneumonia cases in low- and middle-income countries, according to a new study published in The Lancet by a global consortium of scientists—highlighting the need for vaccines against these pathogens.
June 27, 2019
A 21-month-old girl in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province became the country’s 10th polio case this year. The girl, whose parents refused her vaccination, was left partially paralyzed. Of ~9 million children eligible for vaccination in the country, around 860,000 did not…
June 12, 2019
Ebola crossed a dangerous threshold this week as Uganda confirmed a new case—in a 5-year-old-boy who arrived from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the WHO reported yesterday.
June 11, 2019
Dengue is set to threaten 6 billion people by 2080—60% of the current world population—according to study in Nature Microbiology.
June 4, 2019
Last year, it looked like 2 million babies would go without the crucial vaccine for rotavirus, a disease that causes severe diarrhea and dehydration and kills 200,000 children and babies every year. After 6 years, Merck & Co scrapped a deal to supply RotaTeq vaccines in…