New York City officials declared a public health emergency yesterday and ordered mandatory measles vaccinations over an outbreak centered in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn. Officials tie Brooklyn’s eruption of cases—at least 285 since September, mostly in…
Why is the malaria vaccine so elusive? Because the immune response required to shield someone against the parasite must be sky high. A novel effort to achieve a mass-produced vaccine involves a rather antique method: beheading. The mozzie massacre has a purpose: enabling…
When Ebola breaks out in a conflict zone, health workers can't do their jobs—and neither a promising vaccine. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Ebola fight is also up against militias who, perpetually at war with each other, are now targeting clinics. The…
Yet another study has debunked the link between autism and measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations. The findings, published yesterday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, further refute vaccine skepticism fueled by a small, decades-old study now expunged from medical…
After the UN High-level Meeting on Tuberculosis last fall, MSF sharply criticized major donor and high-donor countries for empty promises to end TB—the world’s leading infectious disease killer.
Amid medicine shortages and a mass exodus of trained medical staff, the crisis in Venezuela has seen a re-emergence of vaccine-preventable diseases, including measles and diphtheria that also affect Venezuela’s neighbors. Eliminated from the Americas in 1971, the…
Reversing a controversial policy, the Democratic Republic of the Congo will offer an experimental Ebola vaccine to pregnant and lactating women, and infants under 1 year old. The WHO has endorsed the change. Supporters of the exclusion highlighted the lack of data about the…
The world still doesn’t have a vaccine for one of the world’s deadliest pathogens—Strep A. Emily Sohn’s thoughtful, finely detailed piece exploring the global cost of ignoring the problem—and the people working to solve it—is a good long-read for your weekend.Mosaic
Some 12 years ago, surges in deadly H5N1 bird flu cases sparked a flurry of activity—experimental vaccines tested, antivirals stockpiled. Then it faded into obscurity; no one quite knows why. Certain things about influenza “don’t quite add up completely,” says Nancy Cox,…
This is a story about my best friend’s mother and my mother’s best friend. One died from cervical cancer. One survived.
