Vaccination News

Vaccine and medical test maker BioVeris Corp. said Tuesday it licensed a Baxter Healthcare Corp. meningitis vaccine for use in a combination vaccine that would require fewer injections per doctor visit.

Under the deal, BioVeris will receive nonexclusive, worldwide patent rights to the development, testing or use of the Neisseria meningitidis group C vaccine.

BioVeris did not disclose financial terms of the deal, but said it paid a license issue fee and may also make future payments for patent costs, milestone fees related to clinical trials and regulatory approvals.

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2006 was a very big year when it came to health news. New drug approvals, new vaccines, health scares that never quite made it and health scares that keep coming back for more. They were all part of the big year in health news in 2006.

2006 could easily be named the year of the vaccine. Several new shots hit the market: the first shingles vaccine, a whooping cough, or pertussis vaccine, for adults and a new, safer rotavirus vaccine to prevent the common diarrheal illness in children.

The biggest news, perhaps, surrounded the cervical cancer vaccine. It's approved for pre-teen girls to prevent HPV--human papilloma virus--the sexually transmitted virus that triggers cervical cancer.

Continue reading "2006 Could Be Called the Year of the Vaccine" »

A study has found that men with advanced, often untreatable prostate cancer who received a therapeutic cancer vaccine went on to survive longer than those receiving a placebo.
Study findings showed the vaccine group lived up to an average of four-and-a-half months longer and had a greater than three-fold increase in survival at 36 months when compared to patients in the placebo group.

The study is published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The double-blind, placebo-controlled phase III clinical trial was conducted to test the efficacy of the vaccine, called sipuleucel-T, in delaying disease progression and prolonging survival in patients with asymptomatic metastatic hormone refractory prostate cancer (HRPC).

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Uganda has screened and vaccinated at least a quarter of the 50 babies needed for vaccine trial focused on prevention of HIV transmission from mother to child during breastfeeding.

The first baby in the vaccine trials was enrolled in October and by last week 14 of them had received either the vaccine or placebo saline solution (for control) while 16 have been screened to participate. 

The study is in its phase I, randomised double blind — where the researchers will not know which babies receive the vaccine or the placebo solution, while 40 babies will randomly receive the vaccine and 10 the placebo.

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A team of researchers led by Irun Cohen of the Weizmann Institute of Science Immunology Department has revealed the molecular mechanism of a vaccine for type 1 diabetes.

The new findings should help amplify the effectiveness of the vaccine, which is currently in advanced stages of clinical trials.

Several years ago, Cohen and colleagues developed a vaccine that arrests the progression of type 1 diabetes in laboratory animals. They had discovered that a particular protein called HSP60, or even only a small particular fragment of it – the peptide designated p277 – is able to shut down the autoimmune response causing this disorder. The vaccine is currently being tested in clinical trials in Europe and the United States, but its precise mechanism has until now been unknown.

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Health technician Hamit Öztürk has been paralyzed due to thenflu vaccine. Öztürk stayed at the hospital for 15 days. He was saved by cleansing of his blood from antigens. Öztürk got the flu shot in the corporate office of the government doctor of the ministry of health on November 21.

Then his health started to get worse. It was thought that he had muscle aches in an examination in Ankara Numune Hospital. Then he could not move any of his organs, even his eyelids. It was detected that Öztürk's nervous and immunity system broke down due to the side effect observed in 1 per thousand with the flu vaccination.

source - Sabah.com 

London - Professor Vijay Kakkar has the gentle demeanour of a man into whose hands you would happily entrust your heart, should disease and circumstance require it. And you would be wise to do so. For the professor is a world-renowned vascular surgeon and research scientist whose career has spanned more than 40 years.

Now, approaching his 70th birthday, he is embarking on his most ambitious project yet a vaccine against heart disease that can be administered in childhood and he is confident he will achieve it before the decade is out.

By 2008, he and his team also hope to have developed a cheap, reliable urine test to identify those at high risk of heart disease.

Continue reading "Childhood vaccine against heart disease planned" »

A family cluster infection of bird flu has been identified in Garbiya, about 55 miles north of Cairo, Egypt, say officials from the World Health Organization (WHO). Two infected people had been slaughtering ducks prior to becoming infected, say WHO officials.

Official confirmation conflicts with the WHO version. A spokesman for the Egyptian Health Ministry said only two patients had been infected with H5N1, the virulent bird fly virus strain.

Authorities say birds in the immediate vicinity of the infections are being culled as a precautionary measure. They added that all humans in the area who have been handling poultry are being checked.

Continue reading "Bird Flu Infects Three Family Members In Egypt" »