The initial effectiveness investigations flagged a problem with the 2009 H1N1 vaccine virus in the inhaled version and drove improvement efforts.
Johnson & Johnson's prime-boost Ebola vaccine regimen is entering phase 2 clinical trials in both healthy and HIV-infected people, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) announced yesterday in a press release.
Canada can now be added to the growing list of countries that have detected MCR-1, the recently identified worrisome gene that disables the last-line antibiotic colistin, after it was detected in a patient and in ground beef sold in 2010, the Toronto Star reported today.
After being identified for the first time in China in November, the gene has now been confirmed in samples from at least 11 countries.
The number of locally acquired dengue fever cases on the big island of Hawaii has risen by 10 in a week, to 149 cases, the Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH) said in an update yesterday.
Of the confirmed cases, 132 are in Hawaii residents and 17 involve visitors. Most of the total cases (116, or 78%) have occurred in adults, while 33 cases (22%) involve children. Illness onset occurred from Sep 11 to Dec 7.
A UK study of 779 young people 2 to 18 years old who had egg allergies showed that live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV, a nasal spray) can be administered safely, even among those with a history of asthma or recurrent wheezing, a study yesterday in BMJ found.
Past exposure to influenza virus or antigens—whether by infection or vaccine—might reduce a person's ability to mount a broadly protective antibody response to the virus, a finding that could complicate efforts to develop a "game-changing" universal flu vaccine, according to a study yesterday in Science Translational Medicine.
Agriculture officials in Vietnam reported another highly pathogenic H5N1 outbreak in poultry, while Canadian authorities reported that low pathogenic H5N2 turned up in a hunter-shot duck in British Columbia.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday approved the nation's first seasonal flu vaccine containing an adjuvant—an immune-boosting substance—although European and other countries have used adjuvanted vaccines for years.
Health officials in China's Guangdong province have announced an H7N9 avian influenza infection in a man in his 70s who is hospitalized, according to a report today from Xinhua, China's state news agency.
The man is a farmer from the city of Meizhou, and the source of his infection is still under investigation.
The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) today recommended in a report that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS's) BioWatch program not pursue any upgrades to its second-generation (Gen-2) technology for monitoring the country for potential bioterror attacks until it can provide better efficacy data.
