National Influenza Vaccination Week is a national observance that highlights the importance of flu vaccination for everyone 6 months and older. Below is a selection of articles to help raise awareness of the importance of vaccination to prevent influenza illness and its complications.
A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1980, the World Health
Organization announces smallpox has been eradicated.
“Vaccination
against smallpox was a monumental public health achievement. It is an
intervention that targeted an individual’s health and had a profound effect on
the public’s health. Reducing the number of susceptible people in a population
to a number insufficient to allow an infectious disease to spread is the key to
controlling it. Earlier measures geared toward the public’s health, like the
use of quarantine during times of plague, were very different. Quarantine aimed
to stop the spread of the disease during a particular epidemic; vaccination
reduced the possibility that an epidemic would occur in the first place. Once
enough people had been vaccinated, smallpox, with no non-human host, had no
place to go.” – From Pandemics: A Very Short Introductionby Christian W. McMillen
Vaccination
coverage for routine childhood vaccines can differ substantially within
countries. These variations raise questions around the differing levels of
hesitation towards vaccination. Geographic clusters of underimmunization have
been observed in various countries, particularly in infants, and often
correspond to areas where parents are hesitant to vaccinate their children. Are
some GPs are relying on their own judgment rather than on official vaccination
recommendations?
Vaccines continue to play an important role in modern medicine. However, in recent years, there has been greater debate surrounding the effectiveness and risks of vaccines. What are some of the most common misconceptions, and what are the facts behind these impressions?
What Everyone
Needs to Know Q&A: Today is World AIDS Day,
which takes place on 1 December each year. Founded in 1988,
World AIDS Day was the first ever global health day. In honor of the fight against
HIV, we want to know:
Are
we getting closer to a vaccine to prevent human immunodeficiency virus?
According to WHO,
an estimated 35.3 million people are infected with HIV worldwide. Although the
development of effective medicines has greatly improved associated illness and
survival after infection, there are still more than 1.5 million deaths per
year and an estimated 6,300 new infections per day, primarily in low- and
middle-income countries with lack of access to health care and medicines. New
HIV infections have also persisted or increased among certain groups in the
United States, including young adults. This suggests that existing prevention
strategies have not maintained their ability to substantially reduce infection
rates, highlighting the call for vaccine development as a potential solution.
However,
during the more than 30 years since HIV vaccine development began, an effective
vaccine has yet to be developed. Thirty vaccine candidates have been tested in
more than 85 trials, but none of them have passed vetting for efficacy. The
closest vaccine candidate was RV144, which in 2009 was found to have an
efficacy of only 31.2%. This was not sufficient to move forward with
production, but it did provide a good foundation for new candidates.
Why has
it been so challenging to make an HIV vaccine? This is mostly attributable to
the virus itself. HIV is a diverse virus that frequently mutates, making it
difficult for scientists to identify one stable target for a vaccine. HIV is
also known to be elusive, avoiding the immune system and hiding out in
different organ systems, making it difficult to determine which part of the
virus could be targeted to spark an immune response. Recent shifts in scientific
research have also brought a reduction in funding for HIV vaccine development,
making it difficult to maintain momentum.
As HIV vaccine
development continues, new approaches remain under investigation. The results
are mixed: Since RV144 in 2009, no candidate vaccines have reached Phase II or
III clinical trials.
The mosquito-borne Zika virus was declared
a public
health emergency in 2016, causing research in the area to intensify.
However, this virus is transmitted in a number of other unique ways.
Zika virus infection can occur through
sexual contact and through transplacental
transmission also, meaning that a man could pass on the virus during
conception, and the expectant mother could then pass on the virus to their
unborn child. This transplacental transmission can cause microcephaly in the
foetus, a condition which causes the head to be smaller than normal.
The cause of the virus’ emergence is still
unknown, but vaccines are being developed to bring about the disease’s end.
Image:
Digitally-colorized transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of Zika virus by the
CDC. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
CRISPR (clustered regularly interspace
short palindromic repeats) technology is revolutionising genetic editing, but
patent issues are making commercial research difficult.
Viruses are basic tools of research, but
patents are beginning to be submitted for recently discovered pathogenic
viruses, important for vaccine development. These patents could even partially
be to blame for the delay in the introduction of Ebola and Zika virus vaccines…
At the other end of the spectrum, various
economic incentives, including modifications to patent regime, are being put in
place to encourage development of new AMR technologies. Unfortunately, reports
suggest that the lack of success developing new antimicrobial agents is rooted
in the science, rather than exacerbated by policy, but only time will tell.
Image:
Binding contract by stevepb. Public Domain via Pixabay.
Vaccines are one of the oldest, most
effective forms of human-made self-defence, and novel strategies have been used
in recent years to create increasingly effective vaccines. These vaccines are
challenging to create, however, for a number of
intriguing reasons explored below.
Effective TB vaccines are difficult
to produce due to the increasing number of drug-resistant
strains of the disease.
Human T-cells assist antibodies
in the prevention of whooping cough, but as
vaccines are traditionally focused on the production of antibodies this makes
whooping cough difficult to create vaccines for.
In an effort to overcome
challenges, novel designs have been produced for a meningococcus vaccine, which may lead to the
life-threatening disease’s eradication.
Image: Mycobacterium tuberculosis Bacteria, the Cause of TB Scanning electron micrograph of Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria, which cause TB. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
To prevent serious, sometimes deadly, diseases, National Immunization
Awareness Month encourages the public to stay up-to-date on the vaccines recommended
for their age group.
In support of this critical public health initiative, some
of our journal editors invite you to explore a collection
of articles highlighting the important topic of vaccines.
