vaccine – Page 3

Buying Storing And Shipping A Coronavirus Vaccine Giving It Safely To Everyone On Earth, Will Be Hard And Expensive

11Nov

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

LIFESTYLE

Buying Storing And Shipping A Coronavirus Vaccine Giving It Safely To Everyone On Earth, Will Be Hard And Expensive

Infectious diseases do not respect borders. An estimated 3 billion people in low-income countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America are likely to lack access to a COVID-19 vaccine for years after it becomes available. In poor nations, many communities lack the health care workers needed to administer vaccines, as well as the capacity to handle vaccines properly by keeping them extremely cold. As a bioethicist studying global access to essential medicines, I’m closely monitoring what wealthy countries, foundations and international organizations are doing about this problem. COVAX The COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, or COVAX, is a joint effort by 184 countries working with international organizations to make it possible for people everywhere to get affordable access to COVID...

We May Get A Vaccine Soon – Why We Didn’t Get One by Election Day

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

We May Get A Vaccine Soon – Why We Didn’t Get One by Election Day

A COVID-19 vaccine was not ready before the general election, as many people, including the president, had hoped. But there are promising signs that one may be available soon. A sparse press release issued Nov. 9 by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer suggests that the end is in sight, with preliminary results indicating that its vaccine is 90% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19. The company said it intends this month to seek emergency use authorization, or EUA, from the FDA, bringing some encouraging news to the fight against the pandemic. The Pfizer vaccine is based on a new technology in which a molecule called messenger RNA is injected into the body. This mRNA molecule provides the instructions for cells in the body to manufacture a protein, called the spike glycoprotein, that play...

Obesity Creates Problems For COVID-19 Vaccine

6Nov

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

Obesity Creates Problems For COVID-19 Vaccine

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrust the obesity epidemic once again into the spotlight, revealing that obesity is no longer a disease that harms just in the long run but one that can have acutely devastating effects. New studies and information confirm doctors’ suspicion that this virus takes advantage of a disease that our current U.S. health care system is unable to get under control. In most recent news, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 73% of nurses who have been hospitalized from COVID-19 had obesity. In addition, a recent study found that obesity could interfere with the effectiveness of a COVID-19 vaccine. I am an obesity specialist and clinical physician working on the front lines of obesity in primary care at the University of Virginia Health System. In t...

Video: Who should get a COVID-19 vaccine first?

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS, VIDEO REELS

Video: Who should get a COVID-19 vaccine first?

A committee of The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is readying a report with recommendations for equitable distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine. In this Q&A, bioethicist Dr. Nicole Hassoun of Binghamton University breaks down the elements in the recently published draft report from the committee and explains the key questions around vaccine distribution. Why is there a need for guidelines on how to distribute a COVID-19 vaccine? It’s clear that there won’t be enough vaccines for everybody initially. It just takes a long time to get 300 million doses of vaccine made, and if we’re looking at November as a potential date for a new vaccine, then people start thinking about, “Well, what are we going to do when there’s not enough?” And that’s where this proposal and o...

Halting the Oxford vaccine trial doesn’t mean it’s not safe – it shows they’re following the right process

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Halting the Oxford vaccine trial doesn’t mean it’s not safe – it shows they’re following the right process

Only days after the federal government announced a A$1.7 billion vaccine deal to roll out COVID-19 vaccines to Australians in 2021, one of the two candidates has halted its phase 3 trials after a participant became ill. The AZD1222 vaccine, considered one of the frontrunners in the global race for a COVID-19 vaccine, was developed by the University of Oxford and has been undergoing testing with British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. Melbourne-based biotechnology company CSL has committed to producing and supplying more than 30 million doses of the vaccine to Australians if it’s found to be safe and effective. But this pause in the trials doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not safe. Rather, it indicates the testing is progressing as it should, with due consideration of safety. Wh...

Video: Current rates of vaccine hesitancy in the US could mean a long road to normalcy

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, VIDEO REELS

Video: Current rates of vaccine hesitancy in the US could mean a long road to normalcy

Poltical scientist Matt Motta studies the social and political determinants of anti-science attitudes. In this Q&A, he answers questions about the current levels of vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. and how that might affect the country’s ability to achieve herd immunity after a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available. Matt Motta, a scholar who studies political and science communication, explains why herd immunity may be difficult to achieve in the U.S. How many people plan to take a COVID-19 vaccine? Our understanding is that the number of Americans who plan to refuse a vaccine for COVID-19, when it becomes available, is quite pervasive. Somewhere between 1 in 5 to 1 in 3 Americans plan to refuse a vaccine depending on the survey and how you ask the questions. Research that my colleagues and ...

Challenge trials for a coronavirus vaccine are unethical – except for in one unlikely scenario

24Aug

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

Challenge trials for a coronavirus vaccine are unethical – except for in one unlikely scenario

The world urgently needs a vaccine for COVID-19. Only when a vaccine is approved and people are safe can countries fully end their lockdowns and resume normal life. The trouble is that such vaccines usually take years to develop and test for efficacy and safety. Recently, some bioethicists have proposed a way of speeding up this testing process by several months. Researchers would put volunteers in quarantine with access to the best medical care, give these volunteers one of the trial vaccines and then directly expose them to the coronavirus. This type of intentional exposure is called a challenge trial, and since researchers would not have to wait for subjects to encounter the virus in the normal course of their daily lives, it could result in a vaccine much faster than a normal trial. R...

9 reasons you can be optimistic that a vaccine for COVID-19 will be widely available in 2021

21Aug

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

9 reasons you can be optimistic that a vaccine for COVID-19 will be widely available in 2021

As fall approaches rapidly, many are wondering if the race for a vaccine will bear fruit as early as January 2021. I am a physician-scientist and infectious diseases specialist at the University of Virginia, where I care for patients and conduct research into COVID-19. I am occasionally asked how I can be sure that researchers will develop a successful vaccine to prevent COVID-19. After all, we still don’t have one for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Here is where the current research stands, where I think we will be in five months and why you can be optimistic about the delivery of a COVID-19 vaccine. 1. Human immune system cures COVID-19 In as many as 99% of all COVID-19 cases, the patient recovers from the infection, and the virus is cleared from the body. Some of those who have had...

Russian cyberthreat extends to coronavirus vaccine research

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, CYBERCRIME, TECHNOLOGY

Russian cyberthreat extends to coronavirus vaccine research

A Russian cyberespionage group that hacked into election networks before the 2016 U.S. presidential election is now attempting to steal coronavirus vaccine information from researchers in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. The governments of those three countries issued a warning on July 16 saying that the group known as APT29 or “Cozy Bear” is targeting vaccine development efforts. The group, which is connected with the FSB, Russia’s internal security service, had gotten inside the Democratic National Committee networks prior to the 2016 election. This latest incident illustrates yet again how, beyond carrying all of our phone, text and internet communications, cyberspace is an active battleground, with cybercriminals, government agents and even military personnel probing weaknesses in corporate...

How ‘good’ does a COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine need to be to stop the pandemic? A new study has answers

15Jul

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

How ‘good’ does a COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine need to be to stop the pandemic? A new study has answers

The U.S. is pinning its hopes on a COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine, but will a vaccine alone be enough to stop the pandemic and allow life to return to normal? The answer depends on a how “good” the vaccine ends up being. In a study published July 15 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, my colleagues and I used a computer simulation of every person in the country to show how effective a vaccine would have to be and how many people would have to get vaccinated to end the pandemic. We found that a coronavirus vaccine’s effectiveness may have to be higher than 70% or even 80% before Americans can safely stop relying social distancing. By comparison, the measles vaccine has an efficacy of 95%-98%, and the flu vaccine is 20%-60%. That doesn’t mean a vaccine that offers less protectio...