Further progress has been recorded in the fight against AIDS. GSK reported that it had completed its phase one trial of a new drug to prevent HIV infection, which will be given as part of the PrEP protocol, and may replace the need to take pills on a daily basis.
About 9,000 HIV carriers live in Israel. Every year, around 450 new infected people are registered on the list. PrEP treatments, which have been in use both in Israel and abroad for over a decade, have significantly reduced the rate of HIV infection, especially among members of the LGBTQ+ community.
These are pills that contain antiviral drugs that prevent the replication of AIDS and that must be taken daily. However, some users do not take the pills on a regular basis, which results in the virus developing.
Approximately two years ago, the first injection to prevent the HIV infection was approved in countries including Israel. It is given once a month. Last year, the Health Ministry approved a new injection that is administered once every two months. Now the pharmaceutical company GSK announced the results of a new injection, which prevents infection with the virus, and will be taken only once in every four months.
A phase one clinical study of the new injection showed that it is safe and has a "half-life." That is, the length of time it survives in the body is four months, as expected. The company estimates that they will finish the two additional phases of the clinical trials within a year or so, and that if results continue to be positive, the vaccine can be marketed in 2026.
(Precision Vaccinations News)
Recently, the Republic of Indonesia generously donated 10 million polio vaccine doses to Afghanistan.This initiative is a significant step towards eradicating the disease and ensuring the health and well-being of the Afghan people.
Afghanistan is affected by ongoing endemic wild poliovirus transmission. In 2023, there were six cases confirmed.
According to the government's news agency, on March 8, 2024,Bio Farma, an Indonesian pharmaceutical company, manufactured these oral polio vaccines.
UNICEF is collaborating with Afghan officials to facilitate the transportation and distribution of the vaccines.
Bio Farma produces thenOPV2 vaccine, which hasbeen administered in more than 35countries.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative reported on March 8, 2024, that at the Bost hospital, like every maternity facility in Afghanistan, babies are vaccinated in their first few hours of life.
In any 24 hours, the UNICEF-backed female vaccinators vaccinate dozens of babies in this hospital alone.
Some women are medically trained to administer intravenous vaccinations, and others are known as female mobilizer vaccinators (FMVs). They are not just vaccinators, but FMV are also the first-line advocates for polio eradication.
They are a familiar face to the local community who provides sound advice and information for good health of their children and family members.
Syrian medics launched a vaccination campaign in the northwestern Idlib province in early 2023. Such campaigns depend on the global cholera vaccine stockpile, which is currently empty. Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Syrian medics launched a vaccination campaign in the northwestern Idlib province in early 2023. Such campaigns depend on the global cholera vaccine stockpile, which is currently empty.
The ancient disease of cholera is making a comeback in 2024 but the world's supply of vaccines can't keep up.
The global stockpile of cholera vaccines is empty. There are no doses in reserve. And while the vaccine manufacturer is churning out 700,000 doses a week, all those vials are going directly to active outbreaks.
"The demand is four times more than the supply," said Daniela Garone, the international medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders. "And we don't have enough vaccines to use for the preventive programs."
This couldn't come at a worse time, experts say.
After a long period of global progress against cholera, the number of outbreaks has shot up since 2021. There are currently 17 countries reporting cases, and preliminary data from last year suggest there were over 700,000 cases of cholera and more than 4,000 deaths. Philippe Barboza, team lead of the cholera program at the World Health Organization, said the figures are likely a gross undercount and he's witnessed an "exponential increase" in cases.
With cholera cases climbing, global health organizations saw the vaccine shortfall coming. In the past few years, they have tried several strategies to stretch the current vaccine supply and ramp up production of more doses. But the challenge, Garone said, is to break free from "a vicious cycle" where active outbreaks gobble up all the vaccines and there aren't enough doses for prevention campaigns or to rebuild the reserves.
"Even though we're still running into the headwind, some days we actually end up steps backwards, not steps forward," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "Cholera really represents a perfect storm from a public health standpoint."
In 2013, after watching a successful vaccination campaign help contain an active outbreak in Haiti, the World Health Organization teamed up with other public health groups to create a global cholera vaccine stockpile. Since outbreaks are unpredictable and cholera vaccines take a while to make, the plan was to ensure doses were available whenever they were needed.
For years, the stockpile grew, from roughly 2 million doses in 2013 to about 40 million a decade later.
The vials are stored in huge walk-in refrigerators in an unremarkable warehouse outside of Seoul, South Korea, near the factory where the vaccines are produced. But, lately, given the high demand, freshly made doses don't linger in those refrigerators long.
"As soon as they're on the shelf, they're in a box and on an airplane going somewhere," said Allyson Russell, the acting senior project manager for outbreaks and global health security at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The international group helps fund and facilitate the stockpile.
Gavi, among others, has taken steps to address the vaccine shortage.
In October 2022, the international group managing the stockpile recommended giving just one dose of the vaccine instead of the usual two doses. The protection doesn't last quite as long, but "it basically allows you to vaccinate twice as many people," said Russell.
At the same time, scientists set to work crafting a quicker, cheaper way to make the vaccine. Typically, the vaccine is made by growing five different strains of cholera bacteria, then killing them and finally mixing them together into the vaccine. But, it turns out, all five strains are not necessary, says Russell.
"There are two strains that are very critical. And so the simplified version we have seen in clinical trials to be just as efficacious as the five-strain version," she said, adding that she hopes this new formulation will start being made in the coming months.
But those measures may not be enough to replenish the supply.
There are a few big reasons why the stockpile has run dry.
First, the demand is greater than ever.
"We've never seen something like this," said Livia Tampellini, the medical deputy for Doctors Without Borders' emergency team, who recently returned from helping Zambia with its cholera outbreak. "We cannot support everybody. That is, for sure, impossible."
There are all the usual culprits, including the lack of access to sewage systems and clean drinking water in certain parts of the Global South. Conflict and migration also give cholera the chance to spread. And climate change looms larger each year.
"Many of these very large outbreaks were triggered by a massive...climatic event [such as] a drought or cyclones," said the WHO's Barboza.
Those disasters can easily lead to drinking water being contaminated by human waste as sanitation systems are overwhelmed.
Another factor driving up demand has been a decrease in stigma over the past few years, says Russell of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
"Countries are more willing to report that they have cholera cases, to declare cholera outbreaks," she said, noting this has been seen both in how many cases they report and how many doses they request.
Between January 2023 and January 2024, 76 million vaccines were requested by 14 countries. That's far more doses than available and more than have been requested in the past.
Vaccine supply has proved challenging, with only one company EuBiologics in South Korea making the global cholera vaccine.
The lack of additional manufacturers is "a good indicator of the lack of interest, investment, commitment to control cholera," said Barboza.
There are companies in India and South Africa slated to start producing the vaccine in the coming years. However, he said, "this is taking time, especially for a vaccine which is cheap, which is only focused on the most poor part of the population in the poorest countries in the world. So, it does not attract big manufacturers."
The vaccine typically sells for about $1.50 a dose, leaving thin profit margins for the vaccine maker. Another deterrent is the fact that the cholera vaccine is not part of a routine vaccination campaign and, thus, the demand is bumpy and depends on whether or not there are outbreaks.
Some public health experts are hoping for the resumption of preventive cholera vaccinations, which have been placed on hold given the depleted stockpile. They say it would not only help attract vaccine manufacturers, but it would be good for public health.
That's what Ralph Ternier would like to see. He's the chief medical officer for Zanmi Lasante in Haiti, a sister organization to Partners In Health. In 2022, Haiti was declared cholera-free, but that turned out to be premature. In 2023, the country experienced one of the world's deadliest cholera outbreaks. Ternier worries that more cholera is on its way as Haiti heads into the rainy season struggling with political upheaval, gang violence and a lack of clean water.
He says vaccinating people now could help avoid an outbreak.
"When you vaccinate millions of people, you give yourself time, like three or five years of low cases of cholera," he said.
That would lead to lives saved as well as time to build and repair drinking water and sewage systems, but for now, Ternier said, that's just a dream.
"Honestly, based on the current situation, I'm not expecting to have vaccines," he said.
During a sunny morning on Floridas Gulf Coast last month, an 11-year-old golden retriever named Hunter bounded through a pine grove. Snatching his favorite toy, a well-chewed tennis ball attached to a short rope, he rolled through the tall grass, with an energy that seemed inexhaustible. A passerby might not have even noticed that this playful golden has only three legs.
For Deana Hudgins, the dogs owner, it seems almost unthinkable that two years ago Hunter was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer that kills upwards of 65% of the dogs it afflicts within 12 months, in his left front leg.
For many years Hunter worked alongside his owner as a search-and-rescue dog, helping find victims of building collapses and other disasters. He no longer performs those duties, but does still help Hudgins train other dogs. The energetic golden can also run, fetch, and catch as well as ever.
And two years since his initial diagnosis, Hunter has no signs of cancer. The dogs life-saving treatment incorporated typical approaches, including amputation of the left leg and chemotherapy.But Hunter also received a novel therapy a cancer vaccine developed by Yales Mark Mamula.
If we can provide some benefit, some relief a pain-free life that is the best outcome that we could ever have.
Mark Mamula, Yale School of Medicine
The treatment, a form of immunotherapy that is currently under review by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which regulates animal treatments, has been subject to multiple clinical trials over the past eight years. And the results are promising; for hundreds of dogs, including Hunter, the vaccine has proved effective.
Mamula, a professor of medicine (rheumatology) at Yale School of Medicine, believes the vaccine offers a badly needed weapon in the fight against canine cancer.
Dogs, just like humans, get cancer spontaneously; they grow and metastasize and mutate, just like human cancers do, said Mamula. My own dog died of an inoperable cancer about 11 years ago. Dogs just like humans suffer greatly from their cancers.
If we can provide some benefit, some relief a pain-free life that is the best outcome that we could ever have.
Even as recently as a decade ago, Mamula didnt anticipate that he would one day develop a cancer vaccine for dogs. A rheumatology researcher, he studies autoimmune diseases like lupus and Type 1 diabetes and how the body gives rise to them.
But that work eventually led him to cancer research as well.
Autoimmune diseases, Mamula says, are characterized by the immune system attacking the bodys own tissues; in the case of Type 1 diabetes, the immune system targets cells in the pancreas.
Then several years ago, using what they knew about autoimmunity, Mamula and his research team developed a potential cancer treatment that they say initiates a targeted immune response against tumors.
In many ways tumors are like the targets of autoimmune diseases, he said. Cancer cells are your own tissue and are attacked by the immune system. The difference is we want the immune system to attack a tumor.
It was a chance meeting with a veterinary oncologist soon thereafter that made Mamula think that this novel treatment might work well in dogs.
There are about 90 million dogs, living in 65 million households, in the United States alone. Around one in four dogs will get cancer. Among dogs 10 years or older, that ratio jumps to around one in two.
Yet the therapies used to treat these cancers remain fairly antiquated, Mamula says.
There have been very few new canine cancer treatments developed in decades its a field that is begging for improvement, he said.
In 2015, Mamula met a veterinary oncologist named Gerry Post. During his 35-year career Post has treated cancer in snakes, turtles, and zoo animals. But most of his patients are dogs and cats.
Through conversations with Post, Mamula realized that it wouldnt be difficult to make the leap from human to dog cancers. Together they would launch an early-phase study into Mamulas dog cancer vaccine.
Dog and human cancers are quite similar in a number of ways, said Post, chief medical officer of One Health Company, a canine cancer treatment group, and an adjunct professor of comparative medicine at Yale School of Medicine. Whether its how the cancers appear under the microscope, how the cancers behave, respond to chemotherapy, develop resistance, and metastasize.
After talking with a veterinary oncologist, Mamula realized that it wouldnt be difficult to make the leap from addressing human cancers to dog cancers.
Even the types of cancers that afflict dogs and humans are similar. Like humans, dogs can get melanoma, breast cancer, colon cancer, and osteosarcoma, among others.
When it comes to curing these diseases, these similarities bring an important benefit: understanding cancer in one species will help scientists understand cancer in the other. And treatments that work well for one may actually work well for both.
Several types of cancers in both humans and dogs have been found to overexpress proteins known as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). These include colorectal cancer, breast cancer, and osteosarcoma. One type of treatment currently given to human patients with these cancers involves monoclonal antibodies, proteins that can bind to and affect the function of EGFR and/or HER2. However, patients can develop a resistance to them and their effects wane over time.
For their treatment, Mamula and his team wanted to take a different approach.
Monoclonal antibody treatments are produced from one immune cell and bind to one part of the EGFR/HER2 molecules, but Mamula and his team wanted to induce a polyclonal response.
Doing so, he says, would create antibodies from multiple immune cells, rather than just one, which could bind to multiple parts of the EGFR/HER2 molecules instead of a single area. This would, in theory, reduce the likelihood of developing resistance.
The research team, led by Hester Doyle and Renelle Gee, who are both members of Mamulas Yale lab, with assistance from the New Haven-based biotechnology company L2 Diagnostics, LLC, tested many different candidates in order to find just the right compound. They eventually found one.
After first testing it in mice, and finding promising results, they initiated their first clinical trial in dogs in 2016.
Deana Hudgins knew there was something special about Hunter before she brought him home as an 8-week-old puppy, back in 2012, and began training him to be her next search-and-rescue partner.
The smallest of 18 puppies from two litters, Hunter wasnt the obvious choice when she began looking for a partner.
He was the runt, said Hudgins, who has been training search-and-rescue dogs since 2001 and now runs her own company, the Center for Forensic Training and Education, which provides canine training in Ohio and Florida. But in his case, it made him a little scrappy. He was small but very confident and very brave.
When all of the other puppies were sleeping at the end of the day, he was still running around, climbing all of the toys, retrieving things. We need confident puppies, and thats what he possessed.
By the time he was a year old, Hunter began aiding searches at sites across the United States, working with local law enforcement and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), following natural disasters. His first search, in 2014, was at the site of a mudslide in Oso, Washington that killed 43 people. In his final FEMA search, he helped search for victims of the devastating condominium collapse in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Florida, in June 2021. Hunter was involved in hundreds of searches in the years between.
In 2022, Hunter was still very active and had just earned another service certification when Hudgins noticed that he seemed uncharacteristically sore following a five-day training class.
Ive always been very proactive with my dogs because I spend every day with them, and so I notice very little things, she said. And hes not a dog to limp.
A veterinarian assumed that Hunter had strained something, suggesting anti-inflammatories, but Hudgins insisted on an x-ray. The test revealed the osteosarcoma in Hunters leg.
After doing a lot of research, and consulting with different veterinary groups about what steps to take, Hudgins decided that amputation offered the best chance for Hunters survival, along with chemotherapy.
But during that research, Hudgins had also come across Mamulas vaccine trial. So she reached out to a colleague, James Hatch, a former Navy SEAL who trained dogs in the military and whose nonprofit supports service dogs. Hudgins knew that Hatch also happened to be at Yale, where he is a student in the Eli Whitney Students Program.
I was willing to try whatever I could to keep [Hunter] around as long as possible, said Hudgins. We ask a lot of our working dogs. They work in environments that are very dangerous and often deadly. And my promise to all of them is I will do whatever I have to do to give them the best, healthiest, longest life possible. Dogs dont survive this disease so there was no downside to me for trying the vaccine.
Hatch connected her with Mamula, and soon Hunter was part of the clinical trial. He received his first vaccine dose ahead of his amputation surgery, his second before initiating chemotherapy, and a booster last summer.
Twenty-two months since his cancer diagnosis, Hunter is now considered a long-term osteosarcoma survivor and Hudgins says hes thriving.
He adjusted very well to his front limb amputation, she said. He continues to run around the yard. He swims in the pool. He comes with me to training and chases the other dogs around the yard.
During a recent morning in Florida, Hunter drifted toward a nearby pond while playing outside. Hudgins, knowing the potential risks of straying too close to a pond in Florida (There are alligators everywhere.), quickly called him back. Hunter immediately returned to her.
From a very young age, Hunter wanted to learn the rules of the game, she said. He was eager to go to work every day. I am very, very lucky to have been able to be his partner for 10 years. Hunter is one of those once-in-a-lifetime dogs.
Hunters positive response to the treatment is one many other dogs have experienced as well.
To date, more than 300 dogs have been treated with the vaccine during a series of clinical trials, which are still ongoing at 10 sites in the U.S. and Canada. The findings, which have been published in a peer-reviewed study, have shown that the treatment creates antibodies that are able to home in on and bind to tumors, and then interfere with the signaling pathways responsible for tumor growth.
According to the research team, the vaccine increases the 12-month survival rates of dogs with certain cancers from about 35% to 60%. For many of the dogs, the treatment also shrinks tumors.
While future studies will determine if the vaccine can reduce the incidence of cancer in healthy dogs, the treatment for now remains a therapeutic treatment option after a cancer diagnosis has been made.
Witnessing the happiness that successful therapies provide to families with dogs is incredibly rewarding.
But even this represents something more than just a new tool in the fight against canine cancer, Post says. Its a whole new toolbox.
And in veterinary oncology, our toolbox is much smaller than that of human oncology, he said. This vaccine is truly revolutionary. I couldnt be more excited to be a veterinary oncologist.
Mamula has created a company, called TheraJan, which aims to eventually produce the vaccine. Last year, the company (whose name is inspired, in part, by the late Yale immunologist Charles Janeway, who was Mamulas mentor) won a Faculty Innovation Award from Yale Ventures, a university initiative that supports innovation and entrepreneurship on campus and beyond.
While launching clinical tests of the vaccines effectiveness in humans may be a logical future step, for now Mamula is focused on getting USDA approval of the vaccine for dogs and distributed for wider use.
No matter where it goes, its a project close to his heart.
I get many emails from grateful dog owners who had been told that their pets had weeks or months to live but who are now two or three years past their cancer diagnosis, he said. Its a program thats not only valuable to me as a dog lover. Witnessing the happiness that successful therapies provide to families with dogs is incredibly rewarding.
And once the vaccine becomes available for public use, he says, for working dogs like Hunter it will always be free of charge.
March 8, 2024 On March 5, 2024, the FDAs Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) met to discuss and make recommendations on the vaccine viruses for U.S. flu vaccines for the 2024-2025 flu season. The Committee recommended that all 2024-2025 U.S. flu vaccines be three-component (trivalent) vaccines and include an influenza A(H1N1), an A(H3N2) and a B/Victoria-lineage vaccine virus. Because influenza B/Yamagata viruses, which are included in current four-component (quadrivalent) flu vaccines, are no longer actively circulating, their inclusion in flu vaccines is no longer warranted.
Flu places a substantial health burden on the United States each year, sickening millions, hospitalizing hundreds of thousands and killing thousands to tens of thousands. Flu vaccines have been recommended in the United States for more than 50 years and have been shown to reduce the risk of flu and its potentially serious complications in people who get vaccinated. CDC recommends annual flu vaccination for everyone 6 months and older with rare exception.
The composition of U.S. flu vaccines is reviewed annually, and new flu vaccines are manufactured each year. From the 1958-1959 through 1977-1978 flu seasons, the number of vaccine viruses included in U.S. flu vaccines varied. From the 1978-1979 through 2012-2013 seasons, U.S. flu vaccines were trivalent. During those 35 seasons, flu vaccines included three vaccine viruses: an influenza A(H1N1), an A(H3N2), and a B-lineage vaccine virus (either from the B/Yamagata or B/Victoria lineage). Quadrivalent flu vaccines became available in the United States during the 2013-2014 flu season. These vaccines contained a fourth componenta second influenza B virusin order to protect against both lineages of influenza B viruses. Quadrivalent flu vaccines were available in the United States from 2013-2014 to the current flu season (2023-2024). However, influenza B/Yamagata viruses have not been detected to be actively circulating in global surveillance after March 2020, and therefore, their inclusion in flu vaccines is no longer warranted.
According to an FDA statement: FDA has been engaging and interacting with manufacturers of FDA-approved seasonal flu vaccines and providing scientific and regulatory advice to them to facilitate the timely availability of approved safe and effective trivalent seasonal flu vaccines for the 2024-2025 U.S. flu season. FDA anticipates that there will be an adequate and diverse supply of approved trivalent seasonal flu vaccines for the United States in the coming season.
Each year CDC publishes recommendations for the use of flu vaccines in the United States based on input from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The annual recommendations for the 2024-2025 flu vaccine are expected to publish in August 2024.
Colorized transmission electron micrograph showing H1N1 influenza virus particles. (Photo by: NIH/NAID/IMAGE.FR/BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
LANSING, Mich. (FOX 2) - The first child to die from influenza in Michigan was confirmed by the health department.
The child contracted influenza A(H1N1), the health department said in a statement this week. It's one of 93 influenza-associated pediatric deaths reported in the U.S.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there have been between 20,000-57,000 deaths associated with the flu this season.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is seeing a rise in influenza cases, currently, despite only 25.1% of the state's residents being vaccinated against the flu.
"These are tragedies that no family should ever have to endure," said Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, chief medical executive. "Each year influenza claims the lives of dozens of children across the United States."
The health department used the opportunity to encourage others to get vaccinated. Anyone over six months of age is recommended to get the seasonal shot to reduce transmission and protect against severe symptoms.
Pregnant people are also encouraged to get vaccinated, protecting them and their baby.
According to the Michigan Care Improvement Registry, the flu vaccine coverage for kids six months to 17 years is slightly lower than last year's coverage rate.
The flu isn't the only illness going around in Michigan.
The state is also working to contain possible exposure locations linked to measles cases. At least five in Southeast Michigan have been reported to the health department.
Cases have been reported in Wayne County and Washtenaw County.
Infectious disease doctor explains recommended change to flu shot formula
Updated: 5:03 PM EST Mar 5, 2024
WALK TO GET THAT ICE CREAM INSTEAD OF KEEPING IT IN YOUR FREEZER AND JUST MOMENTS AGO, VACCINE EXPERTS FOR THE FDA VOTED TO RECOMMEND A BIG CHANGE IN THE FORMULA FOR THE ANNUAL FLU SHOT THIS FALL. SO HERE TO EXPLAIN IS DOCTOR TODD ELLEN. HES THE CHIEF OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES AT SOUTH SHORE HEALTH. HES A FAMILIAR FACE HERE ON NEWSCENTER FIVE. GREAT TO SEE YOU DOCTOR. TO SEE YOU. SO LETS TALK ABOUT THAT. LETS SET THIS THING UP FOR OUR VIEWERS OKAY. THERE ARE THERE ARE TWO STRAINS OF THE FLU RIGHT. A AND B THATS RIGHT. AND EACH OF THOSE HAS SUBTYPES. CORRECT. AND IN MOST RECENT WEEK OF DATA WITH NEARLY 2400 PEOPLE HERE IN MASSACHUSETTS TESTED POSITIVE FOR INFLUENZA A AND ABOUT 589 FOR INFLUENZA B. SO WHY ARE HEALTH OFFICIALS INTERESTED IN CHANGING THE RECIPE FOR THE SHOT? SO THIS IS FASCINATING. SINCE 2012, WEVE GIVEN PATIENTS WHAT WE CALL THE QUADRIVALENT FLU SHOT. TWO AS AND TWO BS, TWO AS AND TWO BS. BUT SOMETHING FUNNY HAPPENED WITH COVID FOR THE PAST FOUR YEARS. SINCE MARCH OF 2020, ONE OF THOSE B SUBTYPES CALLED YAMAGATA OKAY, HAS DISAPPEARED. WE HAVENT DISAPPEARED. WE HAVENT SEEN IT IN FOUR YEARS, SO IT MAY BE EXTINCT. WELL, I WAS GOING TO SAY, DOES FOUR YEARS SUGGEST IT MAY BE EXTINCT? BY DEFINITION, YOU USUALLY SAY AFTER TWO YEARS, IF YOU DONT SEE IT, ITS OKAY. BUT BUT YOU KNOW, SO. SO WHAT THE FDA IS BASICALLY SAYING IS WE DONT WE SHOULD REMOVE THIS STRAIN THAT WAS NEEDED FOR MANY YEARS. BUT ITS NOT NEEDED NOW BECAUSE WERE NOT SEEING IT. WE DONT WANT TO GIVE PEOPLE A STRAIN THATS DISAPPEARED GLOBALLY. COULD THIS ACTUALLY HAVE BEEN A BENEFIT FROM COVID OR. NO, YOU CANT. WERE NOT GOING TO GO THAT FAR. LISTEN, I THINK ITS A SILVER LINING. SILVER LINING. YES. SO WHAT IF THE STRAIN COMES BACK AND IM GLAD YOU SAID THAT BECAUSE GUESS WHAT? NEVER UNDERESTIMATE INFLUENZA. IT COULD BE EXTINCT. BUT REMEMBER, WE SURVEIL, WE DO SURVEILLANCE AROUND THE GLOBE. BUT IN TROPICAL COUNTRIES, FOR EXAMPLE, WERE NOT QUITE AS GOOD. SO IT COULD BE HIDING OUT SOMEWHERE. IF IT COMES BACK, THEN THE FDA IS GOING TO BE MEETING AGAIN AND GOING TO MAKE OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS. YEAH. SO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? SO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IS THE EASY PART IS SAYING TO REMOVE THIS OKAY. AND THE FDA WAS UNANIMOUS ABOUT THIS. BUT BUT A LITTLE BIT HARDER PART IS THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES IS ACTUALLY CHANGING FROM THE QUADRIVALENT TO THE TRIVALENT. IT SOUNDS EASY, BUT ITS NOT QUITE AS EASY AS REMOVING BLUEBERRIES FROM YOUR OATMEAL. THEY HAVE TO DO A LOT OF STEPS. ITS A GOOD ANALOGY. YEAH, THERES A LOT OF QUALITY MANUFACTURING THEYVE GOT. AND REMEMBER, ITS NOT JUST THE US, BUT ITS GLOBALLY. SO BUT THEYRE GOING TO DO THEIR BEST TO MAKE IT HAPPEN FOR THIS NE
Infectious disease doctor explains recommended change to flu shot formula
Updated: 5:03 PM EST Mar 5, 2024
After FDA vaccine experts vote to recommend a change to the annual flu shot, Dr. Todd Ellerin explains the reason and the potential implications.
After FDA vaccine experts vote to recommend a change to the annual flu shot, Dr. Todd Ellerin explains the reason and the potential implications.
A type of flu virus that used to sicken people every year hasn't been spotted anywhere on Earth since March 2020. As such, experts have advised that the apparently extinct viruses be removed from next year's flu vaccines.
The now-extinct viruses were a branch of the influenza B family tree known as the Yamagata lineage. Scientists first reported the apparent disappearance of Yamagata viruses in 2021. At that time, experts speculated that precautions taken to stop the spread of COVID-19 such as masking and social distancing had not only driven the overall number of flu cases to historic lows but may have completely snuffed out this type of flu virus.
Now, according to news reports, a panel of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has unanimously agreed that Yamagata viruses should be dropped from the flu shot formulation for the 2024-2025 flu season. For the past decade, U.S. flu vaccines have protected against four types of flu two influenza A strains and two influenza B strains but that number will now fall to three.
The advisory committee has been pushing for this change for some time, STAT reported, and in fall 2023, the World Health Organization raised the same recommendation on a global scale.
Related: Is it too late to get a flu shot?
Dropping Yamagata from flu shot formulations could help boost manufacturers' production capacity, so they can make more doses. Plus, it would eliminate any potential risks associated with growing the virus in a lab a process currently required to make flu vaccines, CNN reported.
And at baseline, experts emphasized that people needn't be vaccinated for something that appears to be extinct, STAT reported.
"We don't want to vaccinate you for a virus that's no longer in circulation for three, four years now," Dr. Hana El Sahly, a professor of molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine and chair of the FDA advisory committee, said at a meeting Tuesday (March 5).
"We've been talking about this for four years," Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the FDA advisory committee, told CNN.
Despite the consensus among health officials, leaders in the pharmaceutical industry argued that manufacturers would need more time to switch to a trivalent formulation. Making the switch requires manufacturers to clear various regulatory hurdles. But with the FDA advisers pushing ahead, manufacturers are prepared to make trivalent vaccines for the U.S. starting this upcoming season; other countries will likely follow later, in accordance with their regulatory policies, STAT reported.
According to CNN, Jerry Weir, director of the FDA's Division of Viral Products, confirmed at the meeting Tuesday that all U.S. flu shot manufacturers have submitted the required regulatory paperwork and should be on track to make trivalent vaccines next season.
As these changes take effect, scientists around the world will continue to watch out for Yamagata alongside other flu viruses that infect people.
Ever wonder why some people build muscle more easily than others or why freckles come out in the sun? Send us your questions about how the human body works to community@livescience.com with the subject line "Health Desk Q," and you may see your question answered on the website!
(Precision Vaccinations News)
CSL Seqirus today announced that it is fully equipped to deliver its influenza vaccine portfolio for the 2024-2025 U.S. season.
The new vaccine will be based on the trivalent strains recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), which confirmed the viral strain selection in a March 5, 2024 meeting.
Furthermore, CSL Seqirus has already received FDA approvalfor its U.S. trivalent influenza vaccines.
"CSL Seqirus applauds the VRBPAC's commitment to providing a clear, evidence-backed recommendation to the FDA so that the composition of seasonal influenza vaccines for the upcoming season will be formulated to match projected circulating strains, based on the WHO's ongoing surveillance," said Gregg Sylvester, CSL Seqirus's Chief Health Officer and Head of Medical Affairs, in a press release.
"In addition to implementing this change, we are committed to working with our partners in public health to reverse the alarming decline in immunization rates and vaccine confidence that we have seen over the past two flu seasons."
The strain selection for the 2024/25 influenza season reflects the removal of B/Yamagata, which will not be included in the vaccines manufactured and delivered by CSL Seqirus.
This selection is in accordance with the February 2024 World Health Organizationrecommendations and is identical to the Southern Hemisphere 2024 flu season, which usually occurs between April and September.
On March 4, 2024, the WHOpublishedInfluenza UpdateN 466,confirminginfluenza detections have recentlydecreased in the Northern Hemisphere.
"This strain consistency across hemispheres will support both speed and efficiency, as CSL Seqirus has experience manufacturing these recommended strains," commentedDave Ross, Vice President of North America Commercial Operations, CSL Seqirus.
Across the globe, CSL Seqirus is collaborating with regulatory bodies and public health authorities on an appropriate transition timeline for each country, which aims to ensure a smooth transition, increase vaccine confidence, and improve immunization rates.
CSL Seqirusisone of the largest influenza vaccine providers in the world. It utilizes egg, cell,and adjuvant technologies to offer a broad portfolio of differentiated influenza vaccines in more than 20 countries worldwide.
As of late February 2024, the U.S. CDC reported over158millionflu vaccineshad beendistributedduring the 2023-2024 season.
Various flu shots remain available at most pharmacies in the U.S.
LANSING, Mich. (WXYZ) The first pediatric death linked to influenza in Michigan this season has been confirmed, the state health department said on Friday.
The child contracted influenza A, H1N1, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said. At least 93 flu-related pediatric deaths have been reported this season nationwide.
These are tragedies that no family should ever have to endure, said Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, Michigans chief medical executive in a statement. Each year influenza claims the lives of dozens of children across the United States. This is why MDHHS continues to strongly recommend that everyone six months of age and older get a seasonal flu vaccine. Its the best way to protect yourself and your family from getting sick and reduces illness severity if someone does get the flu.
According to MDHHS, Michigan is seeing a rise in influenza cases right now.
Over the past few years, we have been seeing a late spike of flu cases at the end of the season, which is unusual," said Dr. Hassan Akel, an emergency room physician based in metro Detroit.
Since October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates nationally, there have been at least:
MDHHS say 25.1% of Michigan residents are vaccinated against the flu this season. You can find a flu vaccine near you by calling your health care provider, your local health department or at vaccines.gov. More information about the flu in Michigan can be found on the states website.
