A public health sign warns people about bird flu in May 2022 in Brighton, United Kingdom. Photo: Andrew Aitchison/In pictures via Getty Images
Bird flu is spreading among dairy cows in at least three U.S. states, and one person in Texas has been infected with the virus, health officials said.
The big picture: More than 80 countries have reported bird flu outbreaks in in poultry and wild birds in the past two years, according to the World Health Organization. Ten countries across three continents have reported virus outbreaks in mammals.
Bird flu is a disease caused by infection with avian influenza Type A viruses, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It spreads globally among susceptible birds through contact as an infected bird sheds the virus in its saliva, nasal secretions and feces, according to the CDC.
The viruses normally spread among birds, according to the World Health Organization.
Yes, but: An increasing number of aviation flu cases among mammals, including cattle, "raises concern that the virus might adapt to infect humans more easily," the WHO says.
While human infection is possible, its occurrence is rare.
Threat level: A person in Texas was being treated for the H5N1 strain of the flu after exposure to dairy cattle presumed to be infected with the virus, health officials said Monday.
The bird flu was recently detected in unpasteurized milk samples and swabs from dairy herds in Texas, Kansas and Michigan.
Worth noting: The bird flu outbreak has contributed to rising egg prices.
Go deeper: Person in Texas contracted bird flu after exposure to infected cows
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News
The stateDepartment for Public Healthsays respiratory virus activity ticked up a bit in Kentucky in the last week of March, but remained at a relatively low level, while hospitalizations for respiratory disease declined but remained at a level that the department considers moderate.
In the week ended March 30, emergency-room visits for influenza, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) increased almost 5% to 1,796. Of those, 1,508 were for the flu.
Flu drives hospital respiratory admissions, ER visits. (File photo)
But in that same week, hospital admissions for the diseases dropped 19%, to 233. Of those, 135 were for flu, 85 were for COVID-19 and 13 were for RSV.
In the week ended March 30, every Kentucky countyhada low rate of COVID-19 hospital admissions, considered to be less than 10 admissions per 100,000 people by theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention.
The state reported 1,431 laboratory-confirmed cases of the flu in the week ended March 30, showing the first uptick in confirmed flu cases since mid-February. The state reported 857 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19, which have declined for seven weeks in a row.
TheKentucky Respiratory Disease Dashboardis now reporting Kentucky monthly death information for all Kentuckians since October 2023 as well as a separate category for those 65 and older during the 2023-24 respiratory season.
The dashboard shows that since the flu season began in October, there have been a total of 524 deaths attributed to COVID-19, with 447 of them in people 65 and older. One COVID-19 victim and one flu victim were children. There have been 121 flu-related deaths, with 74 in people 65 and older. Ten deaths have been attributed to co-infection, with two in people 65 and older.
The H5N1 subtype of highly pathogenic avian influenza has been found in more herds of cows and infected one human in the past week, although health officials say the risk to humans is still low.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Friday that a person who had exposure to infected cows in Texas was found to be infected with the H5N1 subtype, with conjunctivitis being their only symptom. The infected person was treated with a flu antiviral drug and is recovering at home.
It is unclear how the person was infected, but if they were infected by exposure to an infected cow, it would be the first recorded case of transmission from a cow to a human.
The CDC stressed that the overall human health risk of the bird flu remains low. Preliminary analysis of genetic sequences of the virus shows they still are not well adapted to humans. One change was found in the genetic sequence, although the CDC explained that the finding is not uncommon and is not associated with an increased ability to spread between humans.
The CDC recommended that people avoid unprotected exposure to sick or dead animals or to animal poop, bedding, raw milk, or materials touched by sick animals.
During an online meeting held by the USDA, the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), and the United Nationss Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) on Thursday, scientists from the USDA noted that the virus may not be spreading directly between cows and may instead be spreading on milking equipment, the people taking care of the milking, or both, according to Science magazine.
The virus may be transmitted in milk droplets on workers' clothing or gloves or on the suction cups used for milking, according to the scientists.
Meanwhile, Richard Webby, a virologist at St Jude Children's Research Hospital, told NPR on Thursday that "it's hard to explain exactly what's going on without some degree of mammal-to-mammal spread."
"This particular version of the H5N1 virus is teaching us that some of the things we thought we knew about flu were wrong," said Webby.
So far, infected cows have been found in six states, including Texas, Idaho, Kansas, Ohio, New Mexico, and Michigan.
The Texas Department of State Health Services told the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota last week that three cats were also found to have fallen ill due to the bird flu on the affected farms.
Cases of bird flu infecting dairy cows were first reported by US health officials early last week. Those cases were the first-ever recorded instances of the bird flu infecting dairy cows. Dead wild birds were also found at some of the farms.
The USDA noted in its announcements about the infections that the affected milk has been destroyed and that the pasteurization process should destroy bird flu viruses in milk regardless. The FDA recommends against consuming unpasteurized, raw milk.
Outbreaks of avian influenza have been increasingly reported in mammals as the virus has continued to spread around the world in the past few years.
Since 2021, Europe and the Americas have been suffering from a nearly continuous outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza, which has been described as "the largest-ever" on the three continents. The virus has affected tens of millions of birds and thousands of mammals worldwide. Outbreaks of the virus have also become more common in Africa and Asia in the past year and have even spread to Antarctica in recent months.
The World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) noted in March that, while estimates vary, about 485 bird species and 37 mammal species have been infected with avian influenza since 2021. Only the Pacific Islands, Australia, and New Zealand have been spared from the virus.
The loss of wildlife at the current scale presents an unprecedented risk of wildlife population collapse, creating an ecological crisis, noted WOAH.
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Recurring urinary tract infections (UTIs) can be prevented for up to nine years with an oral spray vaccine, a breakthrough British trial has found.
The painful bacterial infection is experienced by half of all women and one in five men, and can be particularly dangerous for older people. Symptoms include a burning sensation when you urinate or needing to go to the toilet more often than usual.
Recurrent infections develop in 20 to 30 per cent of cases and require short-term antibiotic treatment. However, these drugs are becoming less effective as antibiotic-resistant infections are on the rise.
In a long-running trial conducted by clinicians at the UKs Royal Berkshire Hospital, 89 patients were asked to spray the pineapple-flavoured vaccine under the tongue every day for three months, and then followed up the patients for nine years.
In both men and women with recurrent UTIs, over half (54 per cent) remained UTI-free for nine years after the vaccine, with no notable side effects reported.
The average infection-free period across the cohort was 54.7 months (four and a half years) 56.7 months for women and 44.3 months, one year less, for men. Forty per cent of the trial participants reported having second doses of the vaccine after one or two years.
Dr Bob Yang, consultant urologist at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, who co-led the research, said: Before having the vaccine, all our participants suffered from recurrent UTIs, and for many women, these can be difficult to treat.
Nine years after first receiving this new UTI vaccine, around half of the participants remained infection-free.
Overall, this vaccine is safe in the long term and our participants reported having fewer UTIs that were less severe. Many of those who did get a UTI told us that simply drinking plenty of water was enough to treat it.
Many of our participants told us that having the vaccine restored their quality of life.
The vaccine was developed by Spain-based pharmaceutical company Immunotek. The MV140 contains four bacterial species in a suspension of water. It is available off-license in 26 countries.
The research was presented this weekend at the European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress in Paris.
The new results are expected to be passed to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) before the vaccine can be passed on for use on the NHS.
Gernot Bonkat, chairman of the EAU Guidelines on Urological Infections, said: These findings are promising. Recurrent UTIs are a substantial economic burden and the overuse of antibiotic treatments can lead to antibiotic-resistant infections.
This follow-up study reveals encouraging data about the long-term safety and effectiveness of the MV140 vaccine.
While we need to be pragmatic, this vaccine is a potential breakthrough in preventing UTIs and could offer a safe and effective alternative to conventional treatments.
Nearly a third of patients with advanced liver cancer who received a personalized vaccine developed by Geneos Therapeutics along with an immunotherapy drug in a small, early trial saw their tumors shrink, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday.
The result was roughly twice the response typically seen with the immunotherapy alone, the researchers said.
Findings from the preliminary study, presented at the American Association for Cancer Research in San Diego and published in Nature Medicine, suggests that vaccines based on mutations only present in a patients tumor may boost the immune systems ability to recognize and attack hard-to-treat cancers.
The findings, which must be confirmed in a larger trial, moves the industry another step closer to effective cancer vaccines, after many past failures, and may expand the types of cancers that such therapies can treat.
Partners Moderna and Merck and Co and others have had promising results combining customized vaccines with immunotherapy to prevent skin cancer from returning in patients following surgery.
For the study, researchers used samples from patients tumors to build vaccines based on neoantigens - new mutations only present on an individual patients tumor. The goal was to train the immune system to attack and kill only these unique proteins, leaving healthy tissue unscathed.
Unlike skin cancer, which has many mutations for the body to recognize, liver cancer is considered a cold cancer because it contains fewer mutations, which has rendered immunotherapies less effective.
This vaccine essentially educates the immune system to recognize antigens that its ignored, said study leader Dr. Mark Yarchoan of Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.
The study involved 36 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common form of liver cancer. Patients were given custom-made vaccines on top of Mercks widely used immunotherapy Keytruda, the standard of care at the time.
Nearly a third of the patients treated with the combination therapy (30.1%) experienced tumor shrinkage, with three of those subjects having a complete response, meaning no detectable signs of the tumor remaining after a median follow-up of 21.5 months.
That compares with the typical response of about 12% to 18% in patients with liver cancer who receive immunotherapy alone.
This certainly suggested that the vaccine actually added clinical efficacy, Yarchoan said.
The most common adverse effect was mild injection site reactions. There were no serious adverse events.
Unlike many vaccine candidates based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, the Geneos treatment is a DNA vaccine in which the genetic code of the mutated proteins is injected into cells using a small electrical impulse. Each vaccine can target up to 40 mutated genes.
Yarchoan said larger trials are being planned, but declined to provide details.
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Recurrent Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) can be prevented for up to nine years in more than half of people given an oral spray-based vaccine and is a potential alternative to antibiotic treatments, finds research.
Initial results from the first long-term follow-up study of the safety and effectiveness of the MV140 vaccine for recurrent UTIs are presented this weekend at the European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress in Paris.
They show that in both men and women with recurrent UTIs, 54% of study participants remained UTI-free for nine years after the vaccine, with no notable side effects reported. Full results of the study are expected to be published by the end of 2024.
UTIs are the most common bacterial infection. They are experienced by half of all women and one in five men and can be painful and uncomfortable. Recurrent infections, needing short-term antibiotic treatment, develop in between 20 to 30% of cases. With antibiotic resistant UTIs now on the rise and drugs becoming less effective, new ways of preventing and treating these infections are needed.
Carried out by clinicians at the UK's Royal Berkshire Hospital, this long-term follow-up looked at the safety and efficacy of the MV140 vaccine in 89 patients originally treated privately at The Urology Partnership Reading.
MV140 is a new vaccine for recurrent UTIs and is administered with two sprays of a pineapple-flavored suspension under the tongue every day for three months. While researchers have previously studied MV140's short-term safety and effectiveness, this is the first long-term follow-up study to report globally.
Dr. Bob Yang, Consultant Urologist at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, who co-led the research, said "Before having the vaccine, all our participants suffered with recurrent UTIs, and for many women, these can be difficult to treat. Nine years after first receiving this new UTI vaccine, around half of participants remained infection free.
"Overall, this vaccine is safe in the long term and our participants reported having fewer UTIs that were less severe. Many of those who did get a UTI told us that simply drinking plenty of water was enough to treat it.
"This is a very easy vaccine to administer and could be given by GPs as a 3-month course. Many of our participants told us that having the vaccine restored their quality of life. While we're yet to look at the effect of this vaccine in different patient groups, this follow-up data suggests it could be a game changer for UTI prevention if it's offered widely, reducing the need for antibiotic treatments."
In their original trial, patients were initially followed-up for 12 months and data from the women in the cohort was published in BJU International in 2017. For their nine-year follow-up study, the researchers analyzed data from the electronic health records of their original cohort. They interviewed participants about their experience of UTIs since receiving the vaccine and asked them about side effects.
Forty-eight participants remained entirely infection free during the nine-year follow-up. The average infection-free period across the cohort was 54.7 months (four and a half years)56.7 months for women and 44.3 months, one year less, for men. 40% of participants reported having repeat doses of the vaccine after one or two years.
Gernot Bonkat, Professor of Urology at the Alta Uro Medical Centre for Urology in Switzerland, and the EAU Chairman of Guidelines on Urological Infections, said, "These findings are promising. Recurrent UTIs are a substantial economic burden and the overuse of antibiotic treatments can lead to antibiotic-resistant infections.
"This follow-up study reveals encouraging data about the long-term safety and effectiveness of the MV140 vaccine. Further research into more complex UTIs is needed, as well as research looking at different groups of patients, so we can better optimize how to use this vaccine.
"While we need to be pragmatic, this vaccine is a potential breakthrough in preventing UTIs and could offer a safe and effective alternative to conventional treatments."
Developed by the Spain-based pharmaceutical company Immunotek, MV140 contains four bacterial species in a suspension with water. It is available off-license in 26 countries.
Participants in the trial were all aged over 18 years and were UTI-free when they were initially offered the vaccine. None of the participants had other urinary abnormalities such as catheters, tumors or stones. The follow-up study included 72 women and 17 men and outcomes were self-reported.
More information: Assessing the long-term efficacy and safety of Uromune bacterial vaccine in the initial cohort: A 9-year study in the UK for treating recurrent urinary tract infections in men and women by Kanabar S., Foley S., Yang B. is presented at EAU24
An oral spray vaccine against recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs) prevented the condition from returning for up to nine years in more than half of study participants, new research has shown. It offers a safe, effective method of UTI prevention and an alternative to antibiotic treatment.
UTIs are a pain literally, a burning pain. Other symptoms, such as a strong urge to urinate that doesnt go away, frequent urination, and a feeling of fullness even after urinating, are bad enough but made worse when the infection returns months later and keeps returning.
Recurrent UTIs defined as three or more UTIs in 12 months occur in 20% to 30% of cases. Women are affected more than men simply because of their anatomy, with 80-85% of infections caused by the bacteria Escherichia coli. Klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus vulgaris, and Enterococcus faecalis are other culprits. For this reason, antibiotics are often the first-line treatment. However, with the rise in antibiotic resistance, theres a pressing need to find an effective alternative.
Thats where MV140, a new vaccine to treat recurrent UTIs in women and men, comes in. Sold as Uromune, the vaccine is made from inactivated versions of the four bugs listed above, stimulating the immune system to generate long-term protection against UTIs. And, best of all, its not an injection; its a pineapple-flavored spray thats delivered under the tongue each day for three months. A recent study led by clinicians at the UKs Royal Berkshire Hospital has demonstrated that it can be effective for up to nine years.
Before having the vaccine, all our participants suffered from recurrent UTIs, and for many women, these can be difficult to treat, said Bob Yang, consultant urologist at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust who co-led the research. Nine years after first receiving this new UTI vaccine, around half of the participants remained infection-free. Overall, this vaccine is safe in the long-term and our participants reported having fewer UTIs that were less severe. Many of those who did get a UTI told us that simply drinking plenty of water was enough to treat it.
The current study followed up on the first trial to use Uromune to treat women with recurrent UTIs, the results of which were published in the British Journal of Urology (BJU) International. In that study, of the 75 women who completed treatment, 78% had no subsequent UTIs in the 12-month follow-up period. Now, nine years later, a follow-up study, including 72 women and 17 men, investigated the long-term effectiveness of the treatment.
Forty-eight (54%) participants remained completely free of UTIs during the nine-year follow-up period. The average time participants remained UTI-free was 56.7 months for women and 44.3 months for men, which is more than 4.5 years and more than 3.5 years, respectively. Some 40% of participants reported having repeat vaccine doses one or two years after the initial treatment.
This is a very easy vaccine to administer and could be given by GPs as a three-month course, Yang said. Many of our participants told us that having the vaccine restored their quality of life. While were yet to look at the effect of this vaccine in different patient groups, this follow-up data suggests it could be a game changer for UTI prevention if its offered widely, reducing the need for antibiotic treatments.
Uromune is available under special access programs in 26 countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK. A 2023 review of five studies into the effectiveness of MV140/Uromune found that it safely prevented or reduced the risk of UTIs in women, reduced antibiotic use, and reduced healthcare expenditure by 50% per patient per year.
The findings were presented at the 39th Annual European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress in Paris in early April. The researchers expect the study's full results to be published in a peer-reviewed journal by the end of the year.
Source: EAU via Scimex
Three years after receiving BioNTechs cancer vaccine in a phase 1 trial, patients with a difficult-to-treat type of pancreatic cancer continue to have T-cell responses.
Meanwhile, the German mRNA company is enrolling a phase 2 test of the therapy, autogene cevumeran, in the same disease, resected pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).
PDAC has a five-year overall survival rate of about 8% to 10% and recurrence rates as high as 80% after surgery. BioNTech and partner Genentech are hoping to provide another option for patients who have few with autogene cevumeran (also known as BNT122 and RO7198457). The med is an mRNA-based individualized neoantigen-specific immunotherapy.
The long-term follow-up data from the early-stage trial show that eight out of 16 patients continue to enjoy an immune response up to three years after administration, as measured by activated T cells. Persistence of these T cells was associated with a longer median recurrence-free survival in those who received the vaccine, BioNTech said. The results were showcased at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting on April 7.
The company also said that 98% of the T cells that were detected were not there before the treatment was administered. In those who achieved an immune response, over 80% of the T cells could still be detected at the three-year follow-up point. The patients had prolonged median recurrence-free survival compared to those who did not respond.
Six out of eight of the responding patients were disease free at the three-yearpoint, while seven out of eight patients without an immune response to the treatment showed tumor recurrence.
So half of the 16 patients in the phase 1 trial had the response in the first place, while half did not.
These new data are an early signal for the potential of our individualized mRNA cancer vaccine approach in this indication with an unmet medical need, zlem Treci, M.D., BioNTechs chief medical officer, said. The results indicate that our uridine mRNA-LPX technology can promote activation of cytotoxic T cells that may help to eliminate residual tumor foci at early stages of the disease to delay or prevent recurrence.
Genentech and BioNTech are running the midstage test to confirm the findings in the phase 1 trial, according to Treci.
Recruitment is ongoing for that study, which began in October 2023. Autogene cevumeran will be combined with Genentechs PD-L1 immune checkpoint inhibitor Tecentriq and chemotherapy compared with the standard-of-care chemotherapy.
Elsewhere, the cancer vaccine is being tested in three phase 2 tests in melanoma and as an add-on treatment for colorectal cancer.
BioNTech and Roches Genentech began working together in 2016 in a deal worth $310 million in upfront and near-term payments to use the German biotechs cancer vaccine platform.
BioNTech is slightly behind chief competitor Moderna, which is working with Merck & Co. to develop the phase 3 cancer vaccinemRNA-4157 as an add-on treatment for high-risk melanoma. The companies also began pursuing earlier studies in lung cancer last year.
Dont say we didnt warn you. Pediatricians and public health officials have sounded the alarm on declining vaccination rates and the return of the diseases they prevent for more than two decades. Measles, a once-controlled illness, is now present in 17 states.
Recently released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the United States is on pace for about 400 measles cases this year. (There have been nine cases in Floridas Broward County this year, largely linked to local spread among kids at Manatee Bay Elementary.) The national number will surpass the total number of cases in the last four years. Not since the 2019 outbreak in New York (more than 1,200 cases) or the 2014 outbreak at Disneyland in California have more children been infected. Together, these three outbreaks threaten Americas status as a measles-free nation.
Cases of whooping cough, another vaccine-preventable disease, are also rising, with double the number of cases last year than in 2022.
The newest resurgence of measles, the third major outbreak in a decade, is a troubling indicator of the erosion of vaccine acceptance and uptake in our society. It is the expected outcome of what pediatricians like myself face every day a growing and more entrenched group of parents staunchly opposed to childhood immunizations. Only 90.6% of Florida kindergartners were vaccinated for measles before they started school, a drop of 3 percentage points compared to 2016, and worrisome for a disease so contagious that over 95% of the population must be immunized to prevent disease spread.
Even for premature babies, who are at highest risk for hospitalization and death from these illnesses, counseling parents about the importance of vaccination is an uphill climb.
Despite the availability of safe and effective vaccines, measles outbreaks have reemerged in various parts of the country, magnified by factors such as misinformation, complacency and pockets of under-vaccinated populations. Though public health and immunology are sciences rigorously taught in medical school, politicians have replaced professors, fueling public vaccine hesitancy for political gain. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found the percentage of Republicans who believe they should decide if their children are vaccinated even if failing to do so harms other children more than doubled to 44% in the last five years.
High vaccination rates are a team sport. They require legions of physicians and health workers providing immunizations to kids and strong regulations that reinforce the importance of vaccination. Unfortunately, state policies are moving us backward. Last year, a court in Mississippi ordered the state to allow parents to decline immunization based on religion even though no major religion forbids immunization. This ruling reversed what had been the states greatest public health achievement of vaccination rates among the highest in the nation.
To prevent the next measles outbreak, we must de-politicize immunizations, invest in national programs that support public health and push for state-based policies that limit exemptions from state immunization requirements.
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In addition to West Virginia, only New York, California, Maine and Connecticut allow medical exemptions from school vaccination rules. Unsurprisingly, these states surpass the national average in measles vaccination rates. Despite unequivocal support from medical groups and hospitals, these laws are hard to pass. I was frequently in the state capitol when New York passed its new rules on immunization exemptions during the 2019 measles outbreak.
Debates about these regulations need to move away from a focus on individual rights and be re-centered on the needs of the growing number of immunocompromised children who rely on the immunity of the population for protection. The image of the angry parent screaming about infringements on personal freedom needs to be replaced with the child cancer patients who will get gravely ill if their class is under-immunized.
Nationally, we must invest more in our public health infrastructure. County health departments, which provide free immunizations to low-income children and track cases of vaccine-preventable disease, have been under-funded for decades. In his budget earlier this year, President Joe Biden requested almost $3 billion in funds to strengthen immunization and education programs at the CDC. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate removed the extra financial support.
Further, the president also recommended creating a national vaccine program for low-income adults. Modeled on the 25-year-old, incredibly successful Vaccines for Children program, this Vaccines for Adults proposal would ensure adults have access to immunizations, an especially urgent need as new vaccines against respiratory syncytial virus are now indicated for seniors. Again, Congress rejected this recommendation.
The spike in vaccine-preventable diseases is an alarming reminder of the jeopardy facing vaccines and public health policies, and the pressing need for state and national action. If we extract politic rhetoric from the science of vaccination, adequately fund our vaccine-delivery system and enact commonsense, evidence-based policy, we will strengthen vaccine acceptance, preventing the next outbreak.
Consider yourself warned.
Dr. Shetal Shah is chairperson of the national Pediatric Policy Council, a practicing neonatologist and executive member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine.
Madrid (Precision Vaccinations News)
A recent study presented at the European Association of Urology Congress shared the initial findings of the first long-term follow-up study on the safety and effectiveness of the Uromune (MV140) inactivate vaccine for recurrent Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs).
The results, announced on April 6, 2024, indicate that 54% of study participants, including men and women with recurrent UTIs, remained UTI-free for nine years after receiving the vaccine.
Furthermore, no notable side effects were reported.
MV140 is administered with two sprays of a pineapple-flavored suspension under the tongue every day for three months. It contains four bacterial species:whole-cell inactivated bacteria,Escherichia coli, Klebsiellapneumoniae,Proteus vulgaris,andEnterococcus faecalis.
While researchers have previously studied MV140's short-term safety and effectiveness, this is the first long-term follow-up study to report globally.
The study was carried out by clinicians at the UK's Royal Berkshire Hospital and included 89 patients initially treated at The Urology Partnership Reading.
Dr Bob Yang, Consultant Urologist at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, who co-led the research, commented ina press release, "Before having the vaccine, all our participants suffered from recurrent UTIs, and for many women, these can be difficult to treat. Around half of the participants remained infection-free nine years after first receiving this new UTI vaccine."
"Overall, this vaccine is safe in the long term, and our participants reported having fewer, less severe UTIs. Many of those who got a UTI told us that drinking plenty of water was enough to treat it."
"This is a very easy vaccine to administer and could be given by GPs as a 3-month course. Many of our participants told us that having the vaccine restored their quality of life. While we're yet to look at the effect of this vaccine in different patient groups, this follow-up data suggests it could be a game changer for UTI prevention if it's offered widely, reducing the need for antibiotic treatments."
According to the U.S. CDC, UTIs are the most common bacterial infection, experienced by half of all women and various older men.
Recurrent infections, needing short-term antibiotic treatment, develop upto 30%of cases.
These researchers wrote that as antibiotic-resistant UTIs increase and drugs become less effective, new ways of preventing and treating these infections are needed.
For their nine-year follow-up study, the researchers analyzed data from the electronic health records of their original 2017 cohort.
Forty-eight participants remained entirely infection-free during the nine-year follow-up.
The average infection-free period across the cohort was 54.7 months, 56.7 months for women, and 44.3 months, one year less, for men.
And 40% of participants reported having repeat vaccine doses after one or two years.
Developed by the Madrid-based Immunotek S.L.,MV140 was tested in 2012 and is now available off-license in about 26 countries, but not the United States.
