Virology News

GENEVA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) prequalified on Tuesday an Ebola vaccine for the first time, soon after the European Commission granted green light for its conditional marketing, hoping to speed up its licensing, access and roll-out in countries most at risk of Ebola outbreaks. The injectable Ebola vaccine, Ervebo, is manufactured by Merck, known as MSD outside the U.S. and Canada. It has been shown to be effective in protecting people from the Ebola Zaire virus and is recommended by the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) for vaccines as part of a broader set of Ebola response tools. Prequalification means that the vaccine meets WHO standards for quality, safety and efficacy. United Nations agencies and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, can procure the vaccine for at-risk countries based on this WHO recommendation. It's the fastest vaccine prequalification process ever conducted by WHO, which is a step towards greater availability of the vaccine in the future, though licensed doses will only be available mid-2020. The WHO decision comes less than 48 hours after the European Commission granted a conditional marketing authorization for the vaccine, following the recommendation from the European Medicines Agency (EMA). "This is a historic step towards ensuring the people who most need it are able to access this life-saving vaccine," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO. "With a prequalified vaccine and experimental therapeutics, Ebola is now preventable and treatable." The WHO is now facilitating licensing of the vaccine for use in countries at risk of Ebola outbreaks, while many African regulators have indicated they would quickly license the vaccine following the WHO recommendation.

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NEWS RELEASE    Studies Show Flu Vaccine Reduces Risk of Hospitalization in Children and Death in Adults: National Flu Surveillance Research   AT A GLANCE Influenza vaccination can reduce the risk of serious flu complications, including hospitalization in children and death and other severe outcomes in adults, according to analyses of data being presented at ID Flu vaccination reduced the risk of a child being hospitalized from flu by nearly half, one study found. Adults who received the flu vaccine prior to being hospitalized with influenza were 36 percent less likely to die or experience other severe outcomes such as pneumonia, according to another study. WASHINGTON, D.C. –  The influenza (flu) vaccine can not only prevent illness that may cause a week or more of misery, it can reduce the likelihood of hospitalization in children and death in adults, according to two analyses of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-supported U.S. influenza surveillance data being presented at IDWeek 2019. The first study supports the benefit of flu vaccination in preventing severe outcomes in children. Children who received the influenza vaccine were half as likely to be hospitalized with flu as those who didn’t get vaccinated, according to the study, which followed more than 3,600 children over two seasons. The second study looked at more than 43,000 older adults hospitalized with flu over five seasons and found that vaccination reduced the risk of severe outcomes – including death, pneumonia, intensive care admission and mechanical ventilation – by more than one-third. “These studies add to the evidence that influenza vaccines prevent serious complications from flu,” said Angela P. Campbell, MD, MPH, FIDSA, FPIDS, lead author of the study in children and medical officer in the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch of the Influenza Division at the CDC, Atlanta. “They show just how important it is that everyone six months and older who is eligible to get a flu vaccine does so every year.” Flu vaccination in children reduces risk of hospitalization In the first study, conducted by seven pediatric medical centers comprising the New Vaccine Surveillance Network, researchers analyzed flu test results from 3,630 children, aged 6 months to 17 years old, who were hospitalized with acute respiratory illness over two flu seasons in which influenza A(H3N2) viruses were the predominantly circulating virus. Patients were tested for influenza using molecular diagnostic tests: 163 out of 1,714 (10%) during the 2016-2017 season and 218 out of 1,916 (11%) during the 2017-2018 season tested positive for flu, including A(H3N2), A(H1N1) and B viruses. Researchers estimated how well the flu vaccine worked to reduce hospitalizations due to laboratory-confirmed influenza by comparing the frequency of flu vaccination among children who tested positive for flu to vaccination among children without flu, adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, enrollment month, study site and underlying medical conditions. Based on this information, the vaccine effectiveness against influenza-associated hospitalizations was 50% over the two seasons (49% for the first season and 51% the second), meaning that vaccination reduced the risk of hospitalization with flu by about half. “This is encouraging given that flu vaccines often work better against H1N1 and B flu viruses than against H3N2 viruses,” said Dr. Campbell. “Our findings support the use of vaccination to prevent severe flu illness in children during every flu season, regardless of which viruses are predominant.” Flu vaccination in adults reduces risk of death In the second study, researchers looked at five flu seasons using the U.S. Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Network and identified 43,608 adults (18 and older) hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed flu. Overall, 38% of those 18 to 64 years old and 65% of those 65 or older had received a flu vaccine. Researchers assessed vaccination status among hospitalized patients to determine the reduction in the odds of severe outcomes among vaccinated patients compared to those who were unvaccinated. The findings showed that in patients diagnosed with influenza A(H1N1), flu vaccination reduced their odds of severe outcomes, including death, by 36%. Severe outcomes included death, pneumonia, admission to the intensive care unit and mechanical ventilation. Flu vaccination in adults 18-64 with A/(H1N1) influenza was associated with reduced risk of the following: 36% death, 17% pneumonia, 19% intensive care unit (ICU) admission and 34% mechanical ventilation. Vaccination also was associated with a shorter ICU length of stay. Flu vaccination in those 65 years or older was associated with reduced risk of the following: 28% ICU admission, 46% mechanical ventilation. It was also associated with a shorter hospital length of stay. “While flu vaccines vary in how well they work and some people who get vaccinated still get sick, this study provides more evidence that getting vaccinated can reduce the severity of the illness,” said Shikha Garg, MD, MPH, lead author of the study and a medical officer in the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch of the Influenza Division at the CDC. “This type of research helps us more fully understand the benefits of vaccination.” In addition to Dr. Campbell, co-authors of the study in children are: Constance E. Ogokeh, MPH, Craig McGowan, MS, Brian Rha, MD, MSPH, Rangaraj Selvarangan, BVSc, PhD, FIDSA, Mary A. Staat, MD, MPH, Geoffrey A. Weinberg, MD, FPIDS, Julie A. Boom, MD, Janet A. Englund, MD, FPIDS, John V. Williams, MD, Natasha B. Halasa, MD, MPH, FPIDS, Peter G. Szilagyi, MD, MPH, Christopher J. Harrison, MD, FPIDS, Eileen J. Klein, MD, MPH, Monica McNeal, MS, Marian G. Michaels, MD, MPH, Leila C. Sahni, PhD, MPH, Laura S. Steward, PhD, Joana Y. Lively, MPH, Lauren Beacham, MA, Daniel C. Payne, PhD, MSPH, Alicia M. Fry, MD, MPH and Manish Patel, MD. In addition to Dr. Garg, co-authors of the study in adults are: Lauren Beacham, MA, Carmen S. Arriola, DVM, PhD, Alissa O’Halloran, MSPH, Charisse N. Cummings, MPH, Art Reingold, MD, FIDSA, Nisha B. Alden, MPH, Kim Yousey-Hindes, MPH, CPH, Evan J. Anderson, MD, Maya Monroe, MPH, BS, Sue Kim, BS, MPH, Ruth Lynfield, MD, FIDSA, Lourdes Irizarry, MD, Alison Muse, MPH, Nancy M. Bennett, MD, MS, Laurie M. Billing, MPH, Ann Thomas, MD, Keipp Talbot, MD, MPH, FIDSA, Keegan McCaffrey, BA, Alicia M. Fry, MD, MPH and Carrie Reed, DSc, MPH.   About IDWeek IDWeek 2019TM is the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS). With the theme “Advancing Science, Improving Care,” IDWeek features the latest science and bench-to-bedside approaches in prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and epidemiology of infectious diseases, including HIV, across the lifespan. IDWeek 2019 takes place Oct. 2-6 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.idweek.org.

Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis () is an autoimmune demyelinating disorder of the central nervous system and can present following influenza A infections as multifocal neurological deficits. remains a challenging diagnosis, and high clinical suspicious ...

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A vaccine undergoing testing at the Mayo Clinic has reportedly removed cancer cells in a breast cancer patient.

This brief primer reviews the pathophysiology of herpes zoster, and summarizes the results of the clinical trials of Shingrex, the newly approved recombinant vaccine for HZ prevention.

<p>India&rsquo;s Hilleman Laboratories&rsquo; pioneering vaccine to treat shigellosis, a form of dysentery that&rsquo;s a leading killer of young children, is moving into clinical trials in Europe and Africa, but expected launch date has been pushed back in parallel.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>...

To the Editor: In December 2014, a measles outbreak that had started at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California, USA, and subsequently spread to numerous states garnered substantial media attention in the United States. In 2014, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the highest number of measles cases (644) since the disease had been declared eliminated from the United States in 2000 (1). This number is still relatively lower than the numbers reported from 30 countries of the European Union and the European Economic Area; the highest numbers of measles cases in 2013 were from the Netherlands (2,499 cases), Italy (2,216), the United Kingdom (1,900), and Germany (1,772) (2). There is widespread concern that increasing hesitancy to vaccinate in the United States might lead to outbreaks as large as the ones in Europe. Measles vaccine is highly effective, and analyses of a large measles outbreak at a school in Germany have shown that receipt of >1 doses of vaccine can prevent infection in up to 99% of persons (3,4). One might therefore be tempted to think that the proportion of measles case-patients who had been vaccinated must be very small. However, when vaccination rates are high, most persons exposed to an infected person will have received >1 doses of vaccine. As a consequence, the expected proportion of persons who had received >1 doses of vaccine among reported measles case-patients will be substantially higher than 1%. One can derive a simple quantitative relationship between vaccination coverage and the proportion of case-patients who had been vaccinated. Assuming vaccination coverage of v and vaccine effectiveness of α, the proportion of the population who are susceptible to measles infection is 1 − αv. If all susceptible persons are at the same risk of getting infected, the proportion of vaccinated persons among all case-patients will be v(1 − α)/(1 − αv). This equation is similar to the screening method that has been used to calculate vaccine effectiveness on the basis of the proportion of case-patients who were vaccinated and vaccination coverage (5). Perhaps somewhat counterintuitive at first, the proportion of vaccinated measles case-patients increases with vaccination coverage (Figure). We hypothesized that the observed proportion of measles case-patients who had been vaccinated can be used to infer the vaccination coverage in a population at risk (Figure). To this end, we assume a vaccine effectiveness of 99% among persons who had received >1 doses (3,4). In 2013, countries in the European Union/European Economic Area reported 9,708 measles case-patients for whom vaccination status was known (2). Of those, 11.8% had received >1 doses of measles vaccine. On the basis of the relationship derived above, this proportion corresponds to an expected vaccination coverage of 93.1% who had received >1 doses, which is consistent with reported numbers. Switzerland reported 3,850 measles case-patients with known vaccination status from August 2006 through June 2009; of these, 7.0% had been vaccinated with >1 doses (8). The inferred vaccination coverage of 88.3% is very close to the reported national level of 87.0% for receipt of >1 doses at 2 years of age (8). In contrast, the most recent numbers from the United States suggest that vaccination coverage for receipt of >1 doses is still well over 90%. Various complexities might affect the relationship between vaccination coverage in a community and the proportion of case-patients who had been vaccinated. First, we assume a vaccine effectiveness of 99% among persons who received >1 doses. Other estimates indicate that vaccine effectiveness is 92% for persons who received 1 dose and 95% for those who received 2 doses (9). Assuming that vaccine effectiveness is lower shifts the curve (Figure) to the left and would result in a lower estimate of vaccination coverage. Second, different numbers of persons who received 1 and 2 doses complicate the identification of overall vaccine effectiveness. Third, vaccination status is unknown for some measles case-patients. The proportion of nonvaccinated persons among those case-patients might be higher than that among those known to be vaccinated, also leading to a lower estimate of vaccination coverage. Finally, nonvaccinated persons might be clustered together, and their risk for infection could be higher than that for the general population (10). This scenario would imply that the estimated vaccination coverage does not reflect the general population but instead corresponds to a clustered subpopulation among whom vaccination rates are lower. The effects of these complexities warrant further investigation. However, as the examples demonstrate, a model ignoring those effects is in good agreement with empirical data. Our analysis suggests that the number of vaccinated measles case-patients should be closely followed through surveillance programs. A continuous decrease in the proportion of measles case-patients who had been vaccinated over the years could indicate a decrease in vaccination rates. Conversely, an increase in the proportion of measles case-patients who had been vaccinated would demonstrate the effectiveness of ongoing efforts to increase vaccination rates and could serve as a benchmark toward measles elimination.

Humans aren't the only ones who can get autoimmune encephalitis. Dogs are at risk, too.