The head of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says the current strain of bird flu that is causing illness and deaths in China cannot spark a pandemic in its current form – but he added that there...
In recent years, Alaska’s immunization coverage rates for infants age 19-35 months have been among the lowest in the nation. In 2009 Alaska ranked 49th out of 50 states; in 2010 we bumped up slightly to 42nd; and...
Many things about pertussis remain unknown, including the exact cause of the tell-tale non-productive paroxsysmal cough unique to only this respiratory infection. James D. Cherry MD, MSc, from the David Geffen School of...
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and partners have stepped up vaccination campaigns in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey amid measles outbreaks in a region already struggling to provide humanitarian...
A new vaccine launched in Somalia is one-jab armour against five preventable diseases. At the Medina Mother and Child Health Centre in Mogadishu, 6-month-old Abdul Wahab sleeps peacefully in his mother’s arms...
The latest bad news in the hunt for an AIDS vaccine: The government halted a large U.S. study on Thursday, saying the experimental shots aren’t preventing HIV infection. Nor did the shots reduce the amount of the...
An atomic-level snapshot of a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) protein bound to a human antibody represents a leap toward developing a vaccine for a common—and sometimes very serious—childhood disease. The findings, by...
Haiti has recently introduced the pentavalent vaccine, a combination vaccine designed to protect children from five dangerous diseases. Jean-Pierre knows that vaccinating his daughter, Isabel, is one of the best gifts...
Almost three weeks after China reported finding a new strain of bird flu in humans, experts are still stumped by how people are becoming infected when many appear to have had no recent contact with live fowl and the...
Severe disease in humans caused by a novel influenza A virus that is distinct from circulating human influenza A viruses is a seminal event. It might herald sporadic human infections from an animal source — e.g., highly...