Tag Archives: vaccines

Kicking Off World Immunization Week with a Honduran Celebration

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This post was originally published on the Sabin Vaccine Institute’s blog as part of their World Immunization Week blog series. 

Honduras will kick off Vaccination Week in the Americas (VWA) today with a day-long ceremony highlighting the importance of vaccines and other health interventions like deworming and vitamin A supplementation in improving health. The Honduras ceremony, taking place on Monday the 28th in Tegucigalpa, will run alongside World Immunization Week.

VWA represents a unique opportunity to deliver vaccines and other life-saving health interventions to those who need them most. Deworming, vitamin A supplementation, screenings for diabetes, Body Mass Index and blood pressure measurement, will all occur under the umbrella of VWA. In addition, VWA will serve as a platform for civil registration of children in remote communities, sexual and reproductive health education, and delivery of medical and dental care to out-of-regular access groups, among others.

In addition to partners from PAHO, UNICEF, GAVI and the government of Honduras, Sabin will be attending the VWA launch event to further promote vaccines, deworming, and a holistic, integrated approach to ensuring good health and well being.

Because Sabin’s Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases focuses on mass drug administration for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) like intestinal worms, the integration of deworming into VWA is of particular importance. The benefits of controlling intestinal worms through deworming extend to better health, better growth, better learning, and better earning.

The inclusion of deworming as part of VWA – and even more – as part of the regular schedule of vaccines –is extremely cost-effective. All children at risk for intestinal worms at the national level could receive treatment at almost no additional cost. Nurses and community health workers who give children their shots can easily administer deworming pills to these children during these scheduled immunization campaigns.

Additionally, treating intestinal worms helps make other interventions more effective, since the bodies and immune systems of children free of parasites are better prepared to benefit from nutrition, health care and immunizations.

In Honduras, more than a million school-aged children are at risk for intestinal worms and the prevalence of intestinal worms is estimated to be greater than 50 percent in almost half the municipalities. Countries like Honduras have a lot to gain from integrating deworming into regular vaccination programs. This is an effective solution that will boost economic potential and the health of the country’s population.

The integrated delivery package in Honduras’ Vaccination Week in the Americas (launch) is an excellent example for how vaccination and deworming can work together to provide better health for all. We’re looking forward to promoting and participating in such an important event and we encourage other countries to follow the example.

Social Media: For a recap on today’s events, check out the Global Network blog later tonight, 4/28, and follow along with the hashtag #VWALaunch. 

Four Ways to Think About NTDs

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By: Alanna Shaikh

How do I think of NTDs, let me count the ways…

  1. As a social justice issue. The neglected tropical diseases exemplify unfairness on a global scale. NTDs disproportionately affect poor countries, and within poor countries they affect poor people. Among poor people, they disproportionately affect women and children[i]. NTDs are an assault on the members of our global community who are already living the most difficult lives and have the fewest resources to overcome the challenges of disease infection. Often disabling and disfiguring, the NTDs affect people already at risk for social exclusion – women and poor people – and push them even further to the periphery.

  2. As an economic issue. More than a billion people suffer from NTDs – diseases with symptoms like severe pain, blindness, extreme swelling of the limbs, fatigue, cognitive impairment, and anemia. That has a serious economic impact on the countries where NTDs are endemic. One example: chronic hookworm reduces lifetime wages earned by 40%. Furthermore, says Dr. Peter Hotez, NTD-related reductions in agricultural productivity results in billions of dollars lost every year. A billion here, a billion there – that kind of thing starts to add up. If that amount sounds overblown to you, remember that there are a billion people with NTDs. If they each lose ten dollars because of their infection, that’s a ten billion dollar loss right there. And NTDs, as mentioned affect women, children, and men working in agriculture.

    Continue reading →

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Vaccine fever

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By: Charles Ebikeme

Last month, the results of the largest malaria study of its kind was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, spelling out the possibility of new hope for fighting a disease that accounts for 800,000 lives lost on a yearly basis – most of them children under the age of 5. This sparked a promise of hope in controlling a disease that causes so much human death and suffering. But it is by no means the last word. As we all take a step back from the ground-breaking news of the most advanced new malaria vaccine in the field so far – the pros and cons, drawbacks and potential of the RTS,S vaccine is being debated. Those of us interested in NTDs are drawn to the next logical question: how far along are we in vaccine development for NTDs?

With NTDs a heady mix of infections caused by bacterial and parasitic agents, vaccine development for many of the NTDs will have to overcome much of the same problems of the malaria vaccine – both technically and clinically.

The benefit of a vaccine is clear for all to see, and may be complemented with drug administrations as part of a total strategy to eliminate or eradicate many of these diseases. But despite the lack of research and development that plagues the NTDs, there is some progress at hand – or, at least, there is a realization and drive for developing more ‘antipoverty’ vaccines.

Of all the NTDs on the list, only rabies is vaccine-preventable with Buruli ulcer coming in a far second (the current Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine appears to offer some short-term protection). A vaccine for hookworm, the almost vampiric parasite that ingests enough blood to cause anaemia, is in development. Schistosomiasis, arguably the most important human helminth infection in terms of mortality, has one antigen vaccine in clinical trials and a number in preclinical studies. The situation is promising – many have suggested that schistosomiasis could be the next disease to be ‘consigned to history’ by the next time the MDGs have to be rewritten. We wait in hope. Continue reading →

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Oct. 6, 1956: Sabin Polio Vaccine Ready to Test

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On this day in 1956, the Sabin Polio Vaccine was ready for mass testing. Developed by Dr. Albert B. Sabin, the live-virus oral polio vaccine would eventually help bring an end to the polio epidemic that ran rampant in America during the early 20th century. Below is an excerpt from Wired magazine’s blog, “This Day in Tech” which showcases Dr. Sabin and his revolutionary polio vaccine, take a look:

“1956: Dr. Albert Sabin announces that his live-virus oral polio vaccine is ready for mass testing. It will soon supplant the Salk vaccine.

Poliomyelitis is an infectious disease caused by viruses. Its effects range from complete recovery to death. Intermediate possibilities are mild after-effects, moderate to severe paralysis of a limb or limbs, or paralyzed chest muscles, necessitating the confining but lifesaving use of an iron lung.

Polio epidemics periodically ravaged American cities in the first half of the 20th century. Children were especially vulnerable, but the disease also struck adults, most notably former Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1921.

Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, and he founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (as the disease was then often called) in 1938. The foundation conducted a huge annual fundraising campaign called the March of Dimes.”

Click hereto read the full blogpost.