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Vaccines
Pneumonia may reveal undiagnosed blood cancer – Swedish study
A study by Swedish scientists has suggested that severe pneumococcal disease requiring hospitalisation – most commonly pneumonia – can be a sign of previously...
New strategy to target Africa’s declining vaccination rates
Africa has reached an important moment in its immunisation journey, with coverage not rising fast enough to keep pace with population growth; persistent inequities,...
High costs block SA babies’ access to crucial RSV jabs
The high cost of two newly-licensed interventions that protect babies against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is blocking their introduction into South Africa’s public health...
New TB vaccines could prevent 7.3m deaths worldwide by 2050 – Gavi
The new TB vaccines expected to become available from 2029 could save more than 7m lives over a decade, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, said...
Stats SA defends data after scepticism over unvaccinated babies
Stats SA has defended its population data, which the National Department of Health said last week may have skewed its estimates of childhood vaccination...
Dodgy childhood vaccination data prompts department review
Recently published childhood vaccination figures by the National Department of Health – showing an alarming drop – may have been skewed by inaccurate population numbers...
Unvaccinated infant rates triple in SA
The Department of Health says continually plummeting vaccination rates have contributed to the rise in measles infections countrywide, with 3 462 laboratory-confirmed cases recorded...
Trump order slashes childhood jabs
Still fixated on the unproved theory that vaccines are linked to autism, last week – for the third time in less than a year...
mRNA flu jab for seniors approved by FDA
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the nation’s first mRNA-based flu vaccine – from Moderna – for people 50 and older, reports CNN.
Initially,...
Should the MMR vaccine be split into three separate shots?
The contentious executive order by President Donald Trump that immunisations for measles, mumps and rubella should be given in individual jabs in three different...
US officials falsely link Covid vaccines to miscarriage risks
Prominent Republicans and others in Donald Trump’s administration have claimed that Covid-10 vaccines aren’t safe for pregnant women, but years of data show otherwise,...
Trump orders MMR vaccine to be split into three jabs
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order calling for revamped childhood vaccine recommendations that promote his long-held but discredited theory that childhood shots should be spaced...
Moderna flu jab cracks FDA nod after earlier dispute
Moderna may be publicly pivoting toward its cancer therapies, but it’s still notching up vaccine approvals, with the Food & Drug Administration last week...
Measles cases reach 35-year high in United States
America has already recorded 2 295 measles cases this year, a number not seen since 1991, according to new data published on the Johns...
British lung cancer patient first in world to get new vaccine
A woman from England has become the first patient in the world to receive a new vaccine that doctors hope could significantly improve the...
Game-changer new vaccine will eliminate TB public health threat
A new breakthrough vaccine for TB – the first to be introduced in more than a century – is likely to be rolled out...
Mammoth struggle to contain rapidly-spreading Ebola cases in DRC
The Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) Ebola Bundibugyo outbreak, announced just two months ago, has already infected more than 2 120 people and caused...
Drop in vitamin K birth shots tied to bleeding in babies – Swedish analysis
Bleeding episodes among infants aged six months or younger in Sweden doubled between 2003 and 2021, a concerning trend apparently driven by more parents...
Shingles jab may also protect the brain, help ward off dementia
Could a shingles vaccine, which is now available in South Africa, also fight dementia? The evidence appears to be positive, writes Linda Nordling for...
Vaccine hesitancy – lessons from South Africa and Brazil
Vaccine uptake has been declining in Brazil and South Africa over the past decade, reversing important gains in protecting children against vaccine-preventable diseases like...
FDA panel okays mRNA flu jab shot down by Kennedy
An mRNA flu jab candidate that was criticised and dismissed by US Health Sectretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has been unanimously endorsed by a...
HPV jab success sees ‘almost zero chance of cervical cancer death’ – UK study
Since 2008, when schoolgirls were first vaccinated against HPV (human papillomavirus), around 200 lives have been saved in England alone, and the risks of...
Common vaccine shows 24% lower dementia risk – US study
While there’s already convincing evidence that an older shingles vaccine (Zostavax), can protect against dementia, a new and improved shot – Shingrix – has...
More risk of illness, adverse events, from Covid infection than jabs – SA study
A large South African study, involving more than 3m people from the Discovery Health database and undertaken by experts in the field, has concluded...
First African mRNA ‘hub’ gets manufacturing certificate
'Failure was never an option,” said Afrigen Biologics CEO Professor Petro Terblanche last week as the company – which developed an mRNA vaccine from...
Still no conclusive explanation for SIDS – Swiss study
Contemporary sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) research is at an impasse, say experts, who are still unable to pinpoint the cause, or risk factors,...
NICD finds two polio virus strains in Cape wastewater
The Department of Health has said there is no need to panic after the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) detected two polio virus...
Biovac clinches R5.3bn state vaccine contract
The Biovac Institute has retained a critical three-year contract to supply South Africa with Hexaxim, the six-in-one shot provided to babies and toddlers in...
Infant RSV jab better protection than maternal jab – French study
Immunisation with the long-acting monoclonal antibody nirsevimab may provide stronger protection against hospitalisations for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants than maternal RSV vaccination...
Why South Africa’s boys should also get the HPV vaccine
South Africa’s 2026-2030 strategy, which will soon be launched, aims to get girls vaccinated from the age of nine against HPV before they turn...
Personalised DNA vaccine shows promise in US brain cancer trial
In a small phase 1 trial, researchers found that an adjuvant personalised DNA vaccine was safe and demonstrated promising efficacy among patients with MGMT-unmethylated...
Malaria mortality slashed in African children after vaccine
WHO’s approval of the RTS,S/AS01 (Mosquirix) malaria vaccine in 2021 was a milestone in global public health, representing not only the first vaccine approved...
Kennedy stalls $600m in jabs for poor countries
US Health & Human Sciences Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s push to remake the US vaccination schedule is on hold after a federal judge’s...
CDC blocks report showing Covid jabs cut hospital visits
A report showing the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccine and previously delayed by the head of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention...
Alarm over drop in Gauteng’s childhood vaccination rate
More and more children are skipping their childhood immunisations, with the Gauteng Department of Health warning that the declining rates are reducing protection against preventable diseases,...
Promising signs for mRNA cancer vaccines
Messenger RNA, or mRNA, which had generated excitement in the cancer research community long before it became popularly associated with the Covid vaccine, is...
HPV jab halves men’s cancer risk – Japanese cohort study
Cancers caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV) affect both men and women in large numbers, but prevention efforts initially focused on women, reports CIDRP...
High-dose flu shots may lower Alzheimer’s risk – US analysis
A high-dose inactivated flu vaccine has been tied to a roughly 20% lower risk of Alzheimer’s dementia – within the first two years of...
No link between vaccines and sudden cardiac death – Canadian study
The worldwide roll-out of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccines was controversial, with many claiming it took more lives than the infection itself. However, a recent...
Landmark South African study shows efficacy of HPV vaccination
A national HPV vaccination programme can be extremely effective in a high HIV-prevalence setting, a Wits-led research published in The Lancet Global Health shows...