vaccines – Page 2

Why Vaccines From Pfizer And Moderna Are A Breakthrough, How They Work And Why They Need To Be Kept So Cold

18Nov

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

Why Vaccines From Pfizer And Moderna Are A Breakthrough, How They Work And Why They Need To Be Kept So Cold

As the weather cools, the number of infections of the COVID-19 pandemic are rising sharply. Hamstrung by pandemic fatigue, economic constraints and political discord, public health officials have struggled to control the surging pandemic. But now, a rush of interim analyses from pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech have spurred optimism that a novel type of vaccine made from messenger RNA, known as mRNA, can offer high levels of protection by preventing COVID-19 among people who are vaccinated. Although unpublished, these preliminary reports have exceeded the expectations of many vaccine experts, including mine. Until early this year, I worked on developing vaccine candidates against Zika and dengue. Now I am coordinating an international effort to collect reports on adult...

Likely Key To Ending Pandemic Will Be Hard, Keeping Coronavirus Vaccines At Subzero Temperatures During Distribution

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Likely Key To Ending Pandemic Will Be Hard, Keeping Coronavirus Vaccines At Subzero Temperatures During Distribution

Just like a fresh piece of fish, vaccines are highly perishable products and must be kept at very cold, specific temperatures. The majority of COVID-19 vaccines under development – like the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines – are new RNA-based vaccines. If they get too warm or too cold they spoil. And, just like fish, a spoiled vaccine must be thrown away. So how do companies and public health agencies get vaccines to the people who need them? The answer is something called the vaccine cold chain – a supply chain that can keep vaccines in tightly controlled temperatures from the moment they are made to the moment that they are administered to a person. Ultimately, hundreds of millions of people in the U.S. and billions globally are going to need a coronavirus vaccine – and potentially two dos...

Pneumonia Vaccines May Reduce Deaths From COVID-19 Until A Coronavirus Vaccine Is Available

16Oct

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

Pneumonia Vaccines May Reduce Deaths From COVID-19 Until A Coronavirus Vaccine Is Available

The yearly influenza season threatens to make the COVID-19 pandemic doubly deadly, but I believe that this isn’t inevitable. There are two commonly given vaccines – the pneumococcal vaccine and the Hib vaccine – that protect against bacterial pneumonias. These bacteria complicate both influenza and COVID-19, often leading to death. My examination of disease trends and vaccination rates leads me to believe that broader use of the pneumococcal and Hib vaccines could guard against the worst effects of a COVID-19 illness. I am an immunologist and physiologist interested in the effects of combined infections on immunity. I have reached my insight by juxtaposing two seemingly unrelated puzzles: Infants and children get SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, but very rarely become hospital...

What Is COVAX And Why Does It Matter For Getting Vaccines To Developing Nations?

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS, VIDEO REELS

What Is COVAX And Why Does It Matter For Getting Vaccines To Developing Nations?

There is a global effort to distribute vaccines to poorer countries, but some of the world’s largest countries, including the U.S., Russia and China, do not intend to support the effort. That lack of backing could have devastating consequences for accessing a COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. and many poor countries around the world. That is because the U.S. will not have access to vaccines secured by the initiative, called COVAX. Also, COVAX may lack the funding it needs to help poor countries control their epidemics, enabling the virus to continue to circle the globe. I am an ethicist at Binghamton University and am interested in COVAX because I work on global health and justice. What is the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility? COVAX, formally known as The COVID-19 Vaccines Glo...

Your child’s vaccines: What you need to know about catching up during the COVID-19 pandemic

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS, Journalism

Your child’s vaccines: What you need to know about catching up during the COVID-19 pandemic

This spring, after stay-at-home orders were announced and schools shut down across the nation, many families stopped going to their pediatrician. As a result, kids have fallen behind on important childhood vaccinations. Vaccination rates declined starkly after mid-March, with up to 60% reductions in some areas of the country. Nationwide, vaccination rates dropped by 22% among Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program recipients under 2. Now that kids are coming back to pediatricians like me, many parents have questions about catching up. Why is it a problem that my child is behind on vaccines? Vaccines protect your child from serious communicable diseases including brain infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections and, in the case of the HPV and hepatitis B vaccines, even some t...

Keeping coronavirus vaccines at subzero temperatures during distribution will be hard, but likely key to ending pandemic

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Keeping coronavirus vaccines at subzero temperatures during distribution will be hard, but likely key to ending pandemic

Just like a fresh piece of fish, vaccines are highly perishable products and must be kept at very cold, specific temperatures. The majority of COVID-19 vaccines under development – like the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines – are new RNA-based vaccines. If they get too warm or too cold they spoil. And, just like fish, a spoiled vaccine must be thrown away. So how do companies and public health agencies get vaccines to the people who need them? The answer is something called the vaccine cold chain – a supply chain that can keep vaccines in tightly controlled temperatures from the moment they are made to the moment that they are administered to a person. Ultimately, hundreds of millions of people in the U.S. and billions globally are going to need a coronavirus vaccine – and potentially two dos...

COVID-19 vaccines: Open source licensing could keep Big Pharma from making huge profits off taxpayer-funded research

18Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS, SCIENCE

COVID-19 vaccines: Open source licensing could keep Big Pharma from making huge profits off taxpayer-funded research

An international, multi-billion-dollar race is underway to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, and progress is moving at record speed, but with nationalistic, competitive undertones. If and when an effective vaccine is invented, its production will require an unprecedented effort to vaccinate people across the globe. However, for the country that invents a safe and effective vaccine, at least in the urgent short term, it will be politically difficult to export vaccines before their own population is immunized. “The only solution,” vaccine development scientist Sandy Douglas told The New York Times, “is to make a hell of a lot of vaccine in a lot of different places.” But how? Having the public sector fund contracts with vaccine makers is a key component to meeting this future, unprecedented, dis...

Why COVID-19 vaccines need to prioritize ‘superspreaders’

4Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

Why COVID-19 vaccines need to prioritize ‘superspreaders’

Once safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines are available, tough choices will need to be made about who gets the first shots. A committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine – at the behest of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health – has proposed an equitable way to allocate the vaccine. They recommend first responders and health care workers take top priority. Older adults in congregate living situations would also be part of a first vaccination phase, according to the plan. We are faculty at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Southern California who have spent decades studying health economics and epidemiology. One of us is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Having seen firsthand the real risk...

Ending the pandemic will take global access to COVID-19 treatment and vaccines – which means putting ethics before profits

17Jul

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

Ending the pandemic will take global access to COVID-19 treatment and vaccines – which means putting ethics before profits

As COVID-19 surges in the United States and worldwide, even the richest and best insured Americans understand, possibly for the first time, what it’s like not to have the medicines they need to survive if they get sick. There is no coronavirus vaccine, and the best known treatment, remdesivir, only reduces hospital recovery time by 30% and only for patients with certain forms of the disease. Poorer people have always had trouble accessing essential medicines, however – even when good drugs exist to prevent and treat their conditions. In the U.S., where there is no legal right to health, insurance is usually necessary for medical treatment. Remedesivir costs about US$3,200 for a typical treatment course of six vials, though critics argue its manufacturer, Gilead, could make a profit off m...