vaccine technologies

First prequalification for pneumococcal disease vaccine - a life-threatening disease affecting many children; follows first-ever World Pneumonia Day London UK - The World Health Organization (WHO) has awarded prequalification for global use of Synflorix™ , GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals' pneumococcal conjugate vaccine. This is the first prequalification for a vaccine against pneumococcal disease, which is a life-threatening disease affecting many children under five in developing countries. The WHO prequalification allows UN agencies to purchase vaccines on behalf of developing countries and will accelerate global access to Synflorix™. This endorsement comes less than a year after the vaccine's first licensure and just a few days after the ... Read Full Story

The most clinically advanced malaria vaccine so far should be ready for use in three to five years after Phase three trials began in May, researchers have said. The vaccine -- known as the RTS,S -- is targeted to be at least 50 percent effective against the severe form of malaria and to last up to one year. "We believe and hope that in three to five years from today we will be able to put the vaccine in use," Joe Cohen, the vaccine's co-inventor and a GlaxoSmithKline researcher told AFP on Tuesday. Up to 16,000 children aged between six weeks to 17 months ... Read Full Story

The most clinically advanced malaria vaccine so far should be ready for use in three to five years after Phase three trials began in May, researchers said Tuesday. The vaccine -- known as the RTS,S -- is targeted to be at least 50 percent effective against the severe form of malaria and to last up to one year. "We believe and hope that in three to five years from today we will be able to put the vaccine in use," Joe Cohen, the vaccine's co-inventor and a GlaxoSmithKline researcher told AFP. Up to 16,000 children aged between six weeks to 17 months in seven ... Read Full Story

A mother watched with dread as a nurse inserted a tube in her baby's head. Blood streamed into the anemic 4-month-old who already has malaria, the mosquito-borne disease that kills a million African children every year. "Malaria is one of the deadliest sicknesses for children," the nurse said — words that sent the young mother into a crumpled heap on the bed beside her wide-eyed baby boy, wrapped in a blue-and-yellow floral blanket. There is new hope, however, in this verdant area where President Barack Obama's relatives live. A vaccine that appears to be able to prevent the disease in about 50 percent of ... Read Full Story

Health experts and researchers met in the Kenyan capital Tuesday to find ways of eradicating malaria, the world's deadliest infectious disease that kills around 900,000 people every year. Key among the strategies for the fifth Multilateral Initiative on Malaria is the development of an effective anti-malaria vaccine, a project scientists have been researching since the late 80s. The experts were to launch later Tuesday a status report on the Phase 3 trials of the vaccine known as RTS,S targeted to be at least 50 percent effective against the severe form of malaria and to last up to one year. The RTS,S is the most ... Read Full Story

LONDON (Reuters) - Pneumonia kills more young children than any other disease, but an investment of $39 billion, or just $12.9 per child, could save 5.3 million lives in developing countries by 2015, the U.N. said Monday. The disease, which attacks the lungs, kills 1.8 million children under the age of five every year, but despite this toll, relatively few resources are put into tackling it, the World Health Organization and U.N. Children's Fund said. They made a joint appeal to fund a six-year plan for pneumonia prevention and treatment in 68 developing countries, mostly in Africa and Asia, plus parts of Central and ... Read Full Story

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The hepatitis B vaccine - given to protect against infection by a virus that can cause severe liver damage and cancer - may protect for more than two decades, according to a new study. In 1981, Dr. Brian J. McMahon, from the Alaska Native Medical Center, Anchorage, and his colleagues gave more than 1500 Alaska Native adults and children over age 6 months three doses of hepatitis B vaccine. Before the hepatitis B vaccine was licensed for U.S. use in 1981, as many as one in 12 Alaskan Natives were infected. In 2003, the team checked with almost 500 ... Read Full Story