Measles infections are projected to double this year compared to 2018, hitting rich and poor countries alike, the WHO reported yesterday. The UN is calling on member states to close vaccination gaps as far-flung measles outbreaks spread.
February 4, 2019
The Taliban has said it will not target a door-to-door polio vaccination campaign in Afghanistan—but the program still faces another obstacle: communities who don’t trust the drugs. Tony Birtley's interviews with rural residents illustrate the challenges for polio workers…
February 4, 2019
This is a story about my best friend’s mother and my mother’s best friend. One died from cervical cancer. One survived.
January 31, 2019
After claims of severe side effects derailed a human vaccine for Lyme disease in the 1990s, researchers set their sights on a vaccine developed for mice. Lyme-causing bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi is primarily carried by ticks—some 50% of which acquire bacteria after biting…
January 28, 2019
At least one good news story came out of the World Economic Forum, which wrapped up in Davos, Switzerland, last week. Gavi, which launched in Davos in 2000 to get subsidized vaccines to those most in need, estimates it has helped immunize ~700 million from diseases…
January 22, 2019
Trust in vaccines is eroding to the point that they could become useless, warned an important editorial in The New York Times this past weekend. Online, “anti-vaccine propaganda has outpaced pro-vaccine public health information”—and defense against the onslaught is too…
January 9, 2019
Tuberculosis is the globe’s leading cause of infectious disease deaths and China bears a heavy burden—ranking 3rd in total cases. Most TB vaccine development is geared towards infants or adolescents, but cases in China overwhelmingly affect adults over 65. A London School…
December 4, 2018
Finland’s Education Minister Sanni Grahn-Laasonen is proposing to withhold state and family benefits for parents who refuse to vaccinate their children.
November 20, 2018
A third of US parents don’t plan to vaccinate their children against the flu this year, according to a new report from Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.
November 8, 2018
Measles-rubella vaccine coverage is plummeting in Indonesia after local Islamic clerics said the jab’s porcine components render it illegal under Islamic law. Vaccines made with pig parts have been supported by Islamic authorities in Indonesia and elsewhere, but the…