What’s Really Happening With Mpox
The World Health Organization (WHO) acted as expected earlier this month and declared Mpox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). So, a problem in a small number of African countries that has killed about the same number of people this year as die every four hours from tuberculosis has come to dominate international […]
“The Big Catch-Up”
In response to the marked decline in childhood vaccination rates around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic of the past three years, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) and other organizations are partnering in […]
Polio Outbreaks in Burundi and Other African Nations Caused by Vaccine Strain of the Virus
The government of Burundi has declared a national public health emergency due to an outbreak of live vaccine strain poliovirus infections in that country. A mutated strain of the vaccine strain poliovirus, which originally came from the type 2 monovalent oral polio vaccine (mOPV2), was identified in a four-year-old boy in western Burundi and in […]
Merck Plans to Up Production of Experimental Ebola Vaccine
In response to the current outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) which began in August 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). There have been about 2,500 confirmed cases of Ebola in the DRC and at least 1,737 people have […]
“Vaccine-Derived” Polio on the Rise
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) last week reported that there have been a total of 22 confirmed cases of vaccine-derived polio paralysis, thus far, in 2019. The latest two cases involve a person from Sichuan province in China and a person in Angola. Other evidence of circulating vaccine strain poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) has […]
