Friday 12 02 10 13:02 UTC
Poland has avoided accumulating unused swine flu vaccine, unlike other EU countries, but the vaccine controversy has not gone away, says the BBC's Adam Easton in Warsaw. |
Friday 12 02 10 09:46 UTC
A leading immunology research institute has validated the long-held and controversial hypothesis that antibodies - usually the "good guys" in the body's fight against viruses - instead contribute to severe dengue virus-induced disease, the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology announced today. The finding has major implications for the development of a first-ever vaccine against dengue virus, a growing public health threat which annually infects 50 to 100 million people worldwide, causing a half million cases of the severest form. |
Thursday 11 02 10 22:30 UTC
These questions and answers summarize the current understanding of the impact of 2009 H1N1 and seasonal influenza virus on Hispanics/Latinos, describe some of the barriers to uptake of 2009 H1N1 and seasonal influenza vaccines, and outline potential strategies for improving health and increasing vaccine coverage in Hispanic/Latino communities. |
Thursday 11 02 10 14:00 UTC
Social interaction between neighbours, work colleagues and other communities and social groups makes voluntary vaccination programs for epidemics such as Swine Flu, SARS or Bird Flu a surprisingly effective method of disease control... |
Wednesday 10 02 10 17:55 UTC
Swine flu began as a global health emergency, but thankfully never lived up to the initial fears. Cast your mind back to July 2009 and Britain was in the grip of swine flu fever. There were more than 100,000 cases a week and it dominated the headlines. When the National Pandemic Flu Service was launched it initially went into meltdown. Little wonder as at one point the website was getting 2,600 hits per second.
The chief medical officer for England, Sir Liam Donaldson described the media interest as unprecedented, reaching "Michael Jackson proportions" (the pop legend died the previous month).
Today there is so little demand for the online and telephone service (where you can get Tamiflu simply by answering a series of tick-box questions) that it will be shut down at 1am on Thursday 11 February. The service only ever operated in England.
So does this mean we can forget about swine flu? And was it all a huge over-reaction? Millions of Tamiflu tablets remain in warehouses unused, and unless we get a fresh pandemic in the next couple of years, they are likely to pass their sell-by date. You could argue that was a waste of money, but it is easy to be wise after the event.
Professor Wendy Barclay, a virologist from Imperial College London says that the pandemic could have been a lot worse:
"If this had been a bird flu virus then we would have needed enough antivirals for everybody and everybody would have wanted it. A lot of planning went into how to deal with the pandemic and in general we have been relatively successful in the dealing with it."
There is also a lot - and I mean a lot - of unused swine flu vaccine. The government ordered 90 million doses of H1N1 vaccine (with an option to buy 30 million more, which was cancelled). Thirty million of those were supposed to come from Baxter, but its vaccine was beset by problems. Two doses were needed instead of one, and there were supply difficulties - which allowed the UK government to invoke a break clause in its contract with them. The main supplier of vaccine was GSK. The government ordered 60 million doses of Pandemrix.
By my reckoning (and this is an estimate only) around 5.25 million people have been vaccinated in Britain. That means there is an awful lot of vaccine - tens of millions of doses - going spare. I'm told an announcement is likely in around 10 days regarding what will be done with the remaining stocks. As yet we don't have figures for how much the vaccine cost - due to commercial confidentiality.
A huge over-reaction or prudent planning? Sir Liam Donaldson says that he would rather be accused of doing too much to protect the population than too little:
"I would rather be on that side of the fence than having done too little, and have it on our conscience that people died who could have lived a full and active life."
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So has swine flu gone for good? Absolutely not. There may be very few cases now, but it's likely to be back next autumn and for years to come, replacing other flu strains to become the dominant seasonal flu virus.
That's why the government is recommending vaccination for everyone at risk of flu complications, plus all healthy children aged six months to under-five. Swine flu has been a very mild illness for the vast majority, but 60 children in England have died since last April. Given that this is now a vaccine-preventable illness, immunisation now should prevent the chance of them getting the virus in the future.
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Wednesday 10 02 10 14:15 UTC
Ask any health professional who cares for children and they will tell you: When H1N1 flu hits, it can be very severe. In the last four months of 2009, nearly 240 children died in the United States from H1N1 flu—more than three times as many child deaths as in a typical non-H1N1 flu season. |
Wednesday 10 02 10 12:11 UTC
A new study (doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2010.01.002), published by Elsevier this month in Vaccine (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/vaccine) describes a new method that assesses the impact and cost-effectiveness of a range of vaccination options. |
Wednesday 10 02 10 09:06 UTC
As a pivotal paper linking childhood vaccinations to autism is discredited, a new study finds no evidence that the measles vaccine—given alone or as part of a combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine—increases the risk of autism in children. The study appears in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal (www.pidj.com), published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading provider of information and business intelligence for students, professionals, and institutions in medicine, nursing, allied health, and pharmacy. |
Wednesday 10 02 10 08:03 UTC
The Department of Health in NI still has half a million swine flu vaccines it stockpiled to combat the virus. |
Wednesday 10 02 10 07:08 UTC
The National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded a five-year contract totaling $15,254,919 to Tulane University for its ongoing efforts to treat and prevent Lassa fever, an often deadly viral disease that threatens hundreds of thousands of people annually in West Africa and is classified as a potential bioterrorism threat. |
Tuesday 09 02 10 09:05 UTC
Novavax, Inc. announced today new data from a clinical study that began in May of 2009 among healthy adults 18 to 49 years of age with Novavax's trivalent seasonal influenza Virus-like Particle (VLP) vaccine. The vaccine matched the influenza strains recommended for the 2008-2009 influenza season including H1N1 A/Brisbane/59/2007, H3N2 A/Brisbane/10/2007, and B/Florida/04/2006 strains. |
Tuesday 09 02 10 07:26 UTC
GeoVax Labs, Inc., an Atlanta-based, biopharmaceutical company developing human vaccines for diseases caused by HIV-1 (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and other infectious agents, today provided an update on its vaccine trials progress. |
Monday 08 02 10 07:46 UTC
NOW is the ideal time to vaccinate young children against influenza, the New South Wales Government says, ahead of a possible epidemic this winter. |
Saturday 06 02 10 20:00 UTC
DOCTORS have been told to issue the swine flu vaccine throughout summer in order to deplete the Government's stockpile before millions of doses expire. |
Saturday 06 02 10 11:30 UTC
SWINE flu is expected to be the dominant strain of influenza in 2010 and Australians should consider early vaccinations to be prepared, Australia's Chief Medical Officer says. |
Saturday 06 02 10 08:15 UTC
High-coverage human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccinations among adolescents and young women may result in a rapid reduction of genital warts, cervical cell abnormalities, and diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, researchers report in a new study published online February 5 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Some of these genital abnormalities are precursors of cervical, vulvar, and vaginal cancers. |
Saturday 06 02 10 07:44 UTC
Groundbreaking research done at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) School of Biological Sciences (SBS) could lead to the development of more potent drugs or a vaccine for malaria, which is transmitted to humans by infected mosquitoes and kills up to three million people each year. |
Friday 05 02 10 17:30 UTC
Why are some of the doses of H1N1 vaccine manufactured in pre-filled syringes being recalled from the market? |
Friday 05 02 10 13:58 UTC
When hockey fans converge at this Sunday's Ottawa 67's game, Garry Galley, former NHL defenseman and current analyst of Hockey Night in Canada, will team up with Dr. Gary Garber to share defense tips about the four vaccine-preventable strains of meningococcal meningitis with hockey enthusiasts at the Take a Shot for Meningitis Awareness booth. The pair will educate hockey enthusiasts and their families about meningococcal meningitis prevention and protection. |
Friday 05 02 10 09:18 UTC
A new report, Adult Immunization: Shots to Save Lives, released today by the Trust for America's Health (TFAH), the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) found that more than 30 percent of adults ages 65 and older had not been immunized against pneumonia in 36 states as of 2008. |