Category: Vaccine

Researchers are always looking for ways to make vaccines more effective, but the latest find is a bit of an unusual one. According to a new study, alternating arms when receiving the first two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine can modestly improve the bodys immune response.

The potential impact of switching arms for multi-dose vaccines has long been a subject of research, albeit with mixed results. Researchers from the Oregon Health & Science University looked to build upon the limitations of these previous studies, recruiting a large sample of people and tracking their immune responses for longer.

After receiving two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, the team followed 947 participants over the course of just over a year, collecting blood samples at various points and analyzing them for the level of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2.

Those who had received the second shot in their other arm were found to have higher levels of antibodies in their blood compared to those who had received it in the same arm, with the effect increasing over time. The improved response was first made clear three weeks after the second dose, and by 14 months after vaccination, the increase was 1.4-fold.

The study also put 108 people into 54 pairs, matched based on age, gender, and time between vaccination. One person in the pair received the two doses in one arm, while the other received them in both. Although there didnt appear to be much of a difference two weeks after the second dose, after three weeks, those who received the doses in alternate arms showed significantly higher SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels.

Quite why this happens is not entirely clear, though the researchers think it could have something to do with activating new immune responses in the different lymph nodes in each arm. By switching arms, you basically have memory formation in two locations instead of one, explained senior author Marcel Curlin in a statement.

The results of the study are in contrast with research published last year that suggested receiving the initial two vaccines and boosters in the same arm could be the most effective method. However, it should be noted that the earlier study only looked at the immune response at two weeks, not three which could explain why they may not have seen the same effect.

Though the effect seen in the current study was significant, there was a range of responses, all the way from 1.3 to 4-fold increase. However, Curlin said that any incremental improvement might save a lot of lives.

Its hoped that the improved immune response seen in this particular study might also be seen in other multidose vaccines, though the team cautioned that further research would be required for both those and COVID-19 vaccines before any official clinical recommendations could be made.

Im not making recommendations at this point, because we need to understand this a lot better, Curlin told The New York Times. [But] all things being equal, we ought to consider switching up the arms.

The study is published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

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Getting Jabbed In Both Arms Could Boost Immune Response To COVID-19 Vaccines - IFLScience

About The Study:The bivalent COVID-19 vaccines protected children and adolescents against SARS-CoV-2 infection and symptomatic COVID-19 in this study including 2,959 participants ages 5 to 17 years. These data demonstrate the benefit of COVID-19 vaccine in children and adolescents. All eligible children and adolescents should remain up to date with recommended COVID-19 vaccinations.

Authors:Leora R. Feldstein, Ph.D., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jama.2023.27022)

Editors Note:Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text articleThis link will be live at the embargo timehttps://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/10.1001/jama.2023.27022?guestAccessKey=a75feed0-b6a9-4cd0-a32b-60bb296e3af0&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=020624

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Effectiveness of bivalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection in children and adolescents ... - EurekAlert

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A new study of almost 200,000 newborns in Sweden and Norway shows that maternal receipt of the COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy poses no risk to infants, and instead prevents babies from suffering serious complications.

Moreover, the mortality rate for babies born to mothers who were vaccinated during pregnancy was half the rate of those whose mothers were unvaccinated. The study appeared yesterday in JAMA. The authors caution, however, that they were unable to explain why the mortality risk was so reduced among infants whose mothers were vaccinated.

"A direct vaccine effect is unlikely," said Mikael Norman, PhD, first author of the study in a press release from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, where he practices. "Previous studies have shown that the vaccine does not cross the placenta and that it cannot be found in umbilical cord bloodNo matter how we look at it, the finding remains and therefore, we cannot say what the lower risk of death among infants of vaccinated women relates to."

The study included national birth registry data from births from gestational week 22 and onwards after COVID-19 vaccines were available in both countries. Babies included in the study were born from June 2021 to January 2023.

In total, 48% of mothers had been vaccinated with one or more doses of an mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 in pregnancies of 196,470 newborns.

In addition to lower mortality rates by a half, infants born to vaccinated mothers had lower odds for neonatal nontraumatic intracranial hemorrhage (event rate, 1.7 vs 3.2/1,000; adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.78; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.61 to 0.99), and hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (1.8 vs 2.7/1000; aOR, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.55 to 0.96).

There were no cases of myocarditis or thrombocytopenia seen in the study, as well as no increased risk for respiratory distress syndrome or necrotizing enterocolitis.

These findings may provide reassurance to public health authorities, clinicians, pregnant individuals,and their families.

"These findings may provide reassurance to public health authorities, clinicians, pregnant individuals, and their families that infants are not at higher risk of adverse events due to COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy," the authors concluded.

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Bivalent COVID vaccine shows 54% protection in school-age kids - University of Minnesota Twin Cities

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Lauren Pelley, Amina Zafar - CBC News

Posted: February 03, 2024 Last Updated: February 03, 2024

This story is part of CBC Health's Second Opinion, a weeklyanalysis of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers on Saturday mornings. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here .

After an explosion of measles cases in Europe, medical experts say it's just a "question of time" before outbreaks happen in Canada, thanks to high rates of global travel and low rates of vaccinations.

There were 42,200 measles cases across more than 40 European countries last year,the World Health Organization (WHO) announced this week a more than 40-fold increase from 2022, which saw fewer than 1,000 cases. In December, the organization said there hadbeen more than 20,000 hospitalizations and at least five deaths in the European region.

Globally, the situation is even grimmer, with a spike in infections in 2022 that included nine million known cases and 136,000 reported deaths, mostly among children.

The WHO said the rise in cases in Europe has accelerated in recent months, and the upward trend is expected to continue if urgent measures like vaccination efforts aren't taken to prevent further spread of this potentially deadly infection.

"It's not something that is mild," said Dr. Kate O'Brien, a Canadian pediatric infectious diseases specialist anddirector of the WHO's department of vaccines and immunization. "And it's not something to be taken lightly."

WATCH | Families encouraged to catch up on vaccinations:

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Canada eliminated measles back in 1998 through widespread vaccination programs.

Here, the vaccine is given to children as two doses of a combined shot that also protects against a combination of infections either measles, mumpsand rubella, or measles, mumps, rubellaand varicella.

The annual case count remains small only a dozen confirmed infections were reported country-wide in 2023 and most cases are now acquired through travel outside the country.

But clinicians say outbreaks are still a risk. Canada, like many other countries, hasn't hit the 95 per cent vaccination coverage required to prevent its spread.

"Measles is probably the most infectious human virus that is known, and as a result, in order to prevent measles infections, vaccination rates have to be really high in a community," said O'Brien.

"What's happened is, over the course of the pandemic, we've had a historic backsliding in the immunization rates around the world."

In Europe, the level of coverage with two doses of the measles vaccine dropped from 92 per cent in 2019 to 91 per cent by 2022, WHO data shows. Nearly two million infants also missed their measles vaccination in the first two years of the pandemic.

That means children are particularly at risk, clinicians say. Measles spreads easily through the air, leads to high hospitalization rates, and can cause a hacking cough, high feverand a prominent rash. In more serious cases, it leads to pneumonia, brain damage, and death in up to three out of every 1,000 children infected.

Infections can have wide-ranging and sometimes lifelong consequences, including blindness, deafness, or immune system impactsthat leave people vulnerable to other infections.

In the U.K., where there have been hundreds of cases in recent months, including 127 reported infections in January alone, health officials also point the finger at "falling" vaccination coverage. One in 10 childrenstart school in England without protection.

That's similar to Canada. Federal data from 2021 shows that 79 per cent of children had two doses of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine by their seventh birthday, down from 83 per cent in 2019 and 87 per cent in 2017.

That suggests close to two in 10 children hadn't yet had their full set of shots far from Canada's target of 95 per cent coverage for that age group.

"Right now we're underneath the level of immunization that we need to prevent onward transmission in Canada," said pediatric infectious diseases specialist Dr. Charles Hui, who works with CHEO and the University of Ottawa.

Another study on population immunity in Ontario, published in 2019, found nearly eight per cent of blood samples had antibody levels below the threshold needed to ward off a measles infection. This suggested that immunity in some age groups may be waning "despite high vaccine coverage."

And clinicians warn the situation is getting worse.

During the pandemic, when doctors' offices were shut and public health units were tied up with COVID-19 screening and testing, routine immunization rates to protect infants and children from serious infections like measles plummeted across Canada.

"I think the answer is really trying to do everything we can to optimize vaccination delivery and catch up all those people who missed vaccinations during that pandemic, 'cause there are a lot of them," said Dr. JeffreyPernica, division head of infectious diseases at McMaster Children's Hospital.

"Most of these are people who would get their kids vaccinated if they had the time and means to do so."

But measles is exceptionally contagious.

"Normally we think that, as long as somebody doesn't cough in our face orshake our hand with their, you know, snotty hand, we will be OK, right?" Pernica said. "That issort of the rule for most respiratory viruses."

The contagiousnature of measles means that if an infectedperson walks into a store and another person who isn't vaccinated comes in two hours later, they can still catch it.

Research suggests that one person with measles can spread it to an average of 12 to 18 others.

"It will be really critical for governments to provide the resources for public health and to primary care, to really do all they can to catch up all of those who have missed vaccinations, and to encourage vaccinations among those who have not yet decided to receive them," he said.

The WHO's O'Brien also stressed the safety and effectiveness of measles vaccines, which are roughly 97 per cent effective. "Over the past 20 years, we estimate that over 56 million deaths have been averted as a result of measles vaccination around the world," she said.

Global travel remains a key concern for clinicians. In recent weeks, multiple Canadian public health alerts have been issued about possible travel-related exposures.

One confirmed case in a Saskatoon resident, who was infected through international travel, may have exposed others in various stores, a university campusand a hospital emergency room. Meanwhile, a confirmed case in the Windsor, Ont., area was linked to possible exposures at Toronto's bustling Pearson International Airport.

"The 12 cases last year from Canada were all imported cases and that is concerning in and of itself," Hui said. "But the concern would be if we import cases, and they come into contact with people who don't have immunity, then we have transmission within Canada."

He added it's likely "just a question of time" before cases linked to travel abroad end up sparking an outbreak.

Dr. Shelly Bolotin, director of the Centre for Vaccine Preventable Diseases, urged families heading out of the country for spring break to plan ahead, even if they're heading to places without outbreaks of measles or other vaccine-preventable infections.

"We can also get exposed at an airport," said Bolotin, an associate professor at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Normally, infants receive their first dose of measles vaccine at 12 months. But if achild is six months or older andgoing to a place where measles is circulating extensively, parents should discuss early immunization, she said.

Canada's federal government has an ongoing global measles notice for travellers, noting outbreaks are "occurring in every region of the world," leaving anyone unprotected at risk of being infected when travelling.

"That's why it's so important that every individual is protected against measles," said O'Brien."Because you don't know where that exposure is going to come from."

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Measles has exploded in Europe. Clinicians say it's only a matter of time before outbreaks hit Canada - CBC.ca

A new vaccine shows encouraging early results as a potential off-the-shelf treatment for certain patients withpancreaticorcolorectal cancer, according to a study co-led by researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). The vaccine targets tumors with mutations (or changes) in the KRAS gene, a driving force in many cancers.

Thiscancer vaccineis different from another type of pancreatic cancer vaccine, which iscustom-made for each patient using messenger RNA (mRNA). Both are therapeutic vaccines given after surgery to prevent or delay the cancer from coming back in high-risk patients.

"Having a vaccine that's 'off-the-shelf' would make it easier, faster, and less expensive to treat a larger number of patients," saysmedical oncologist and pancreatic cancer specialist Eileen O'Reilly, MD, who helped lead the trial and is one of the corresponding authors in the study published inNature Medicine. "This gives hope for people with pancreatic and colorectal cancer who have been out of effective treatments when their disease returns."

Dr. O'Reilly is co-corresponding author of theNature Medicinestudy, along with Shubham Pant, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Christopher M. Haqq, MD, PhD, of Elicio Therapeutics.

The phase 1 trial involved 25 patients whose pancreatic or colorectal cancer had certain KRAS mutations and were at high risk of the cancer returning after surgery. The results demonstrated this vaccine is safe and appears to stimulate the patient's immune system to create cancer-fighting cells:

In patients whose immune system appeared to respond to the vaccine, the recurrence of cancer was delayed compared with patients who did not respond to the vaccine. That's the type of early clinical effect we can build on."

Eileen O'Reilly, MD,medical oncologist and pancreatic cancer specialist

A different approach to activating immune cells has been led bysurgical oncologist Vinod Balachandran, MD. He is investigating whether a personalized mRNA vaccine using proteins from a patient's pancreatic tumors will alert their immune system that the cancer cells are foreign. In this way, the mRNA vaccine trains the body to protect itself against cancer cells. This vaccine is now being tested in a phase 2research studyat MSK and other institutions.

Personalized vaccines -; while promising -; also have challenges. They take time to make and are costly. By contrast, an off-the-shelf vaccine manufactured in batches could be given to patients with minimal delay and would be cheaper to produce.

"These findings are exciting because they show we may have more than one way to activate immune cells to target pancreatic cancer," Dr. O'Reilly says.

Source:

Journal reference:

Pant, S., et al. (2024). Lymph-node-targeted, mKRAS-specific amphiphile vaccine in pancreatic and colorectal cancer: the phase 1 AMPLIFY-201 trial.Nature Medicine. doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02760-3.

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New vaccine may be potential off-the-shelf treatment for pancreatic, colorectal cancer - News-Medical.Net

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A new mRNA cancer vaccine being trialled in the UK could herald the dawn of a new age of treatments for the disease, a scientist has suggested.

With development of the emerging vaccine technology having been turbocharged by the coronavirus pandemic, British patients are among a global cohort enlisted to trial the safety and efficacy of a vaccine experts hope could lead to a new generation of off-the-shelf cancer therapies.

The vaccine named mRNA-4359 and produced by Moderna is aimed at people with advanced melanoma, lung cancer and other solid tumour cancers.

While in some cases, vaccines are created specifically for each individual patient in laboratories using their own genetic information, the vaccine being trialled by British patients is among those targeted more broadly at specific types of cancer, which can be produced much more quickly and easily.

A man from Surrey with malignant melanoma skin cancer that is not responding to treatment was the first UK person to receive the vaccine at Hammersmith Hospital in late October as part of the trial arm run by Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

I had a different immunotherapy, I had radiotherapy, the only thing I didnt have was chemotherapy. So, the options were either do nothing and wait, or get involved and do something, said the 81-year-old, who does not wish to be named.

Im extremely grateful to the hospitals and the individuals that are running these trials. Somehow we have to change the fact that one in every two people get cancer at some point, and we have to make the odds better.

During the trial, the vaccine will be tested alone and in combination with an existing drug pembrolizumab, which is an approved immunotherapy treatment, also known as Keytruda.

Scientists say 20 years of research into the field of cancer vaccines is finally starting to bear fruit

(PA)

Between 40 and 50 patients are being recruited across the globe for the trial, known as Mobilize, including in London, Spain, the US and Australia, although it could be expanded. Once in the body, the mRNA (a genetic material) teaches the immune system how cancer cells differ from healthy cells and mobilises it to destroy them.

Dr Kyle Holen, head of development, therapeutics and oncology at Moderna, said researchers hope the vaccine may be able to treat a range of cancers beyond those in the current trial.

We believe it could be effective in head-neck cancer, we believe it could be effective in bladder cancer, we believe it could be effective in kidney cancer, he said. But were starting out with the two that we think have the highest probability of being effective and that is melanoma and lung cancer.

Dr Holen suggested that two decades of work on cancer vaccines is finally starting to bear fruit, with the field having finally come to a point where were starting to see a real benefit in patients.

That was something that we saw with our first vaccine, where we were able to reduce the risk of recurrence by more than half in patients who had high-risk melanoma, he said. So were really excited about some of the early results and we hope that this brings in the dawn of a new age of cancer treatments.

Dr David Pinato, of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, said that while immunotherapies remove the invisibility cloak that makes cancer hide within the body, the appeal of cancer vaccines is that you can make it much more specific you can basically give the immune system written instructions like an identikit of the tumour cells, which is more precise.

Progress in UK cancer survival is now slower than it has been for 50 years, a recent study suggested

(PA)

The advantage of mRNA technology is that it makes your own body produce those instructions, which then awakens the immune system, said Dr Pinato.

While personalised vaccines can also be very effective, they can take weeks to make and rely on a large tumour sample. There is also not enough data at present to say whether personalised vaccines are in fact better than broader cancer vaccines such as Modernas, he said.

The Moderna vaccine looks at specific traits across a number of tumours at what is the most frequent hit that you can target in cancer, said Dr Pinato. And so that has got incredible advantages in terms of the turnaround time, the fact you can make doses of the vaccines ahead of time even before meeting the patient. That is really the advantage.

The Mobilize trial is still recruiting patients, with Moderna expecting to report results at some point next year.

Dr Holen said the success of mRNA technology for Covid-19 vaccines has given an impetus to speed up development of cancer jabs using mRNA.

We started creating our cancer vaccine before the Covid epidemic occurred and we used some of that technology that we were creating for the cancer vaccine for the Covid vaccine, he said.

And whats really remarkable is now weve treated over a billion patients with our Covid vaccine, and that same technology is now being studied again in cancer patients. Because weve treated over a billion patients, we know a lot about the safety of the treatment and how well its tolerated around the world.

New vaccines could revolutionise the way Britain treats cancer, the health secretary said

(PA/Alamy)

So well have probably more safety information on our cancer vaccine than any other vaccine thats ever been created for cancer, and that makes us feel confident that were on the right track.

The side effects from Moderna cancer vaccines appear to be less than what would be expected with other immunotherapies, he added.

Weve had very mild side effects that are consistent with a Covid or a flu shot. Theres some pain in the arm, theres some fatigue, some low-grade fevers, that lasts a few days. And when you compare that to other immune therapies, its actually quite mild, said Dr Holen.

The UKs health secretary, Victoria Atkins, said: This vaccine has the potential to save even more lives while revolutionising the way in which we treat this terrible disease with therapies that are more effective and less toxic on the system.

However, experts are unsure why some patients respond well to vaccines and others have a poor response or none at all.

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Cancer vaccine being trialled by NHS could herald 'dawn of a new age' - The Independent

A global fight against measles faces setbacks from vaccine hesitancy, highlighting the need for increased adult vaccination to protect against outbreaks.

Measles, once controlled through widespread vaccination, is resurging due to misinformation and vaccine hesitancy. Efforts to increase adult MMR vaccination aim to restore herd immunity and prevent outbreaks.

Imagine a disease more infectious than any other known to medical science, that would kill 2.6 million young children every year and leave millions more with deafness and even brain damage. It sounds like something from pandemic horror fiction, but such a disease does exist measles.

Yet even measles was tamed across the world, at least for a while. In the aftermath of the successful eradication of smallpox in the 1970s, a similar global vaccination effort crushed measles mortality from 2.6 million in 1980 down to 73,000 by 2014.

Measles R number (the average number of people someone with the virus will go on to infect) of 15 or more puts even the most rampant variants of SARS-CoV-2 in the shade. Because of this infectiousness, its never been quite possible to achieve eradication, but many countries have been declared measles-free by the World Health Organization (WHO).

This achievement isnt necessarily permanent, however. The UK was deemed measles-free in 2016 but lost its status just two years later. And now there are rising case numbers across England, with significant outbreaks in London and the west Midlands.

The principal weapon in the war against measles has been the MMR vaccine, rolled out from 1971, which also provides immunity against mumps and rubella two other viruses with potentially nasty long-term effects.

MMRs global deployment was perhaps the greatest public health triumph of the last quarter of the 20th century, saving at least 56 million lives by WHO estimates.

Until, in 1998, a spanner was thrown in the works when spurious claims were made in The Lancet about a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism. In 2010, the paper was retracted by the journal and its lead author, Andrew Wakefield, struck off from practicing medicine in the UK. But by then, the damage had been done.

Despite numerous studies confirming both the efficacy and safety of MMR, and failing to find any connection whatsoever with autism, many people began to have second thoughts about bringing their children in for vaccination. Vaccine hesitancy had set in, and measles began its insidious return, with global deaths climbing to 136,000 in 2022.

Despite the success of the MMR vaccine, the spread of misinformation regarding the vaccines safety has led to increased vaccine hesitancy and a resurgence of measles cases worldwide. Public health campaigns now emphasize the importance of adult vaccination to restore herd immunity and protect vulnerable populations.

Vaccine hesitancy, although nothing new, has become such a problem for public health services that it is the subject of intense research interest.

And it isnt just scare stories about autism. Studies have revealed the full complexity of the problem that there is no single factor that vaccine-hesitant people share, and therefore no obvious, easy public educational strategy to solve the problem.

Those who are less educated have a tendency to hesitancy but so do those who are highly educationally qualified. Likewise, those who hold deep religious convictions but also those who are militantly anti-religious, those who distrust the nanny state, those who distrust capitalism and particularly the pharmaceuticals industry, the poorest in society and the richest all these groups show elevated levels of vaccine hesitancy, yet often have little else in common at all.

In contrast, a middle-of-the-road, middle-income, reasonably educated person with weakly held religious beliefs is the most likely to be found in the queue at the vaccination station. We still do not really know why.

Vaccine hesitancy is now a problem for all vaccination programs, particularly measles, since its R of 15 or more means that any drop in vaccine coverage will result in a rapid increase in cases.

Where vaccine coverage becomes locally low, there can be local epidemics of considerable severity. Many countries have now lost their hard-earned measles-free status, in Europe including Albania, the Czech Republic, and Greece, as well as the UK.

But there is one thing we can all do to help and if you live in the UK, the NHS can help you do it.

Measles vaccines arent only for children.

Even if an adult has received MMR as a child or survived an attack of measles in the pre-vaccination days, their immunity can wane. Although the risk of a second attack bad enough to produce the symptoms seen in unprotected children is very small, adult MMR is still worthwhile as it goes beyond just protecting the person who receives the vaccination.

Bolstering the immunity of adults against these three viruses decreases the likelihood of an asymptomatic infection and prevents an adult from becoming an unwitting carrier. Adult MMR can help to restore some of the herd immunity that has been lost due to vaccine hesitancy.

Babies under a year of age cannot receive MMR, so they are the most vulnerable. Opting for adult MMR helps protect those babies from measles, and it helps prevent rubella in pregnant women and their babies.

And if youre a man of a certain age, opting for adult MMR also protects you personally against orchitis the dreaded inflammation of the testicles that is a symptom of mature mens mumps.

It would be a tragedy for the world to return to the days of uncontrolled measles epidemics due to sustained vaccine hesitancy over MMR. Lets get herd immunity against measles back up to where it should be by choosing adult MMR.

Written by Derek Gatherer, Lecturer, Biomedical and Life Sciences, Lancaster University.

Adapted from an article originally published in The Conversation.

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Measles: The Most Infectious Disease Known to Science Why Adults Need an MMR Vaccine Booster - SciTechDaily

Moderna's final research stages on their vaccine against the deadly CMV virus are underway. The vaccine has so far shown to be safe, triggering strong immune responses capable of combating the virus.

The vaccine, known as mRNA-1647, utilizes the same technology as Moderna's COVID-19 vaccines. It stimulates the body to produce antibodies that neutralize the virus, while also mobilizing white blood cells to eliminate it. These antibodies remain in the body as a lasting "immune memory," ready to fend off future invasions by the same virus.

The vaccine's initial phase focused on safety, beginning in 2019. Results indicated that it was safe and led to an increase in antibodies against the CMV virus, both in healthy individuals and pregnant women. A subsequent phase in 2020 involving 252 volunteers confirmed the vaccine's safety and efficacy in antibody production. The final phase, encompassing around 8,000 participants in the USA and Europe, is expected to conclude within months. Following this, approximately one more year will be needed for the FDA to finalize its approval process.

"CMV infection during pregnancy can significantly harm the fetus," said Prof. Tal Biron-Shental, chairwoman and director of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Division at Meir Medical Center, Kfar Saba, affiliated to Tel Aviv University.

"While most pregnant women who contract the virus do not transmit it to their fetus, there is no reliable way to determine this until signs of fetal damage appear on an ultrasound, sometimes only detectable after birth."

Affected fetuses may suffer from conditions including deafness, blindness, and extensive brain damage. "There are new treatment studies, but they are only applicable to women infected close to their pregnancy," Biron-Shental added. "Thus, prevention is the best strategy, making vaccination a key tool in preventing maternal illness and subsequent fetal harm. Given that Moderna's vaccine employs a technique similar to that used for the coronavirus vaccine, we are fully confident in its safety and hopeful for its proven efficacy soon."

What is CMV? The cytomegalovirus is one of the most prevalent viruses, with at least half of women expected to contract it at some point. For some, it causes no illness; for others, it can lead to mild flu-like symptoms or more severe conditions like the "kissing disease," similar to symptoms caused by the EBV virus. However, CMV can be much more dangerous for newborns.

How does fetal infection occur? Transmission to the newborn can happen through the placenta during pregnancy or during birth.

How to detect infection in pregnant women? Gynecologists direct suspected cases to undergo serology tests, measuring antibodies against CMV in the blood and their ratios. Suspicion of recent infection could lead to further testing for the virus's presence in the amniotic fluid.

What are the symptoms in newborns? While 85% of infected newborns show no symptoms, the remaining 15% may experience significant health issues, including organ enlargement, jaundice, and brain damage. CMV is the leading cause of congenital deafness.

Why can't antibiotics be used? Antibiotics are ineffective against viruses, including CMV. Recent developments in antiviral treatments show promise, especially when administered close to pregnancy.

Treatment for infected newborns involves antiviral medications such as Ganciclovir or Valganciclovir, which help reduce deafness risks. These treatments require close monitoring and frequent blood tests to manage potential side effects.

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Breakthrough CMV vaccine offers hope to pregnant women - The Jerusalem Post

To the Editor:

Re Covid Vaccine Hesitancy Is Getting Worse, by Danielle Ofri (Opinion guest essay, Jan. 31):

Unfortunately, Dr. Ofris language here embodies the misguided approach that too many in the medical community have taken during and after the pandemic, severely eroding our patients trust in public health.

Reasonable people can disagree about the utility of Covid vaccine boosters in otherwise healthy adults. Indeed the World Health Organization is not recommending updated Covid boosters for otherwise healthy adults or children.

Thus, the almost 80 percent of American adults who chose not to get boosted this winter are not suffering from the heebie-jeebies. They are making a rational decision that is in line with that made by European health agencies that likewise dont support universal Covid boosters (a policy that, in my mind, is strongly supported by the current scientific evidence).

To suggest otherwise is harmful to the trust we physicians are trying to restore with our patients after the pandemic.

Shelli Farhadian Guilford, Conn. The writer is an assistant professor of medicine (infectious diseases) at Yale School of Medicine.

To the Editor:

When I read this essay I thought of a traffic safety conference Id once attended. The subject was seatbelt use, and the common attitude discussed was that it wont happen to me and if I die, then it wont be my problem anymore. The speaker responded, But what if you survive in a permanently disabled state? The prospect of living with the adverse consequences of your behavior can raise the stakes in ones mind.

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Opinion | The Reasons for Covid Vaccine Hesitancy - The New York Times

University of Washington Dr. Mary Lenora Disis has spent her career learning how the body fights cancer and working to develop a cure. She believes there could be a breast cancer vaccine within 10 years, according to UW Medicine.

Weve kind of come to a tipping point in our understanding of cancer vaccines, said Dr. Disis. With the body of work out there now, with the number of investigators out there now, with the data Im seeing published now, I think that is a reasonable goal to hit.

According to the American Cancer Society, around 20% of breast tumors have higher levels of a protein called HER2. Therefore the cancers are called HER2-positive breast cancers.

The vaccine Dr. Disis is working on targets HER2-positive breast cancers and is in Phase 2 of clinical trials.

Dr. Disis is also leading a trial of another vaccine aimed at protecting high-risk patients from developing breast cancer.

We developed a vaccine that targets five proteins that are very commonly upregulated in breast cancer stem cells, she said. Were testing it in patients who have triple-negative breast cancer because their breast cancers have a lot of stem cell-like features.

To learn more, watch the video below.

2024 Cox Media Group

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UW doctor says there could be a breast cancer vaccine within a decade - KIRO Seattle