(UNICEF) by Maryanne Buechner Today, relatively few Americans grasp the seriousness of polio, measles and tetanus, thanks to the success of routine immunization. But those whose lives have been touched by these diseases can never forget how damaging they can be — and how important it is to keep vaccinating. It was late February, 1960 […]
(NYTimes)- By Jan Hoffman and Ruth Maclean As poor countries around the world struggle to beat back the coronavirus, they are unintentionally contributing to fresh explosions of illness and death from other diseases — ones that are readily prevented by vaccines. This spring, after the World Health Organization and UNICEF warned that the pandemic could spread swiftly when children gathered for […]
(Wired)- AS RESEARCHERS, PHARMA companies, and governments around the world are racing to make a vaccine against the pandemic coronavirus in record time, there’s a growing concern that many Americans won’t want it when it arrives. In a series of recent polls, only about half of US adults say they would get a Covid-19 vaccine, even though more than 1,000 […]
(CNBC) The coronavirus vaccine will be provided free of charge to Americans who can’t afford it, the Trump administration announced Tuesday. Any American who is “vulnerable, who cannot afford the vaccine and desires the vaccine, we will provide it for free,” a senior administration official told reporters during a press briefing Tuesday morning. The administration […]
In the history of medicine, rarely has a vaccine been developed in less than five years. Among the fastest to be developed was the current mumps vaccine, which was isolated from the throat washings of a child named Jeryl Lynn in 1963. Over the next months, the virus was systematically “weakened” in the lab by her […]
(HealthDay News) — Delayed vaccination enabled the initial spread and increased infectious contact facilitated transmission of measles in the 2018 to 2019 outbreak in New York City, according to a study published in the May 27 issue of Science Advances. Wan Yang, Ph.D., from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York […]
(American Medical Association)- Once a winning COVID-19 vaccine emerges from the dozens in development, the only way it will truly be successful is if enough people get the vaccine to create herd immunity. Ensuring that success starts now, authors write in a JAMA Viewpoint essay, “Planning for a COVID-19 Vaccination Program.” The health care system must deliver […]
(Vox)- If you’d asked me, when our baby was born in November, how likely it was that I’d decide to delay his vaccinations against the doctor’s recommendations for several months, I’d have told you there was absolutely no chance. I report on global health; I know that the diseases vaccination has virtually eradicated in the […]
NEW YORK (AP) — It may end up being a bad flu season for kids, but early signs suggest the vaccine is working OK. The vaccine has been more than 50% effective in preventing flu illness severe enough to send a child to the doctor’s office, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said […]
(NPR) COVID-19 isn’t the first health crisis the United States has faced that experts say a vaccine will be needed to resolve: In the 1950s, people lived in fear their children might be stricken with infantile paralysis, better known as polio — and they were eager for scientists to find a solution. “There was a […]
