The Potential and Challenges of Mucosal COVID-19 Vaccines | NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

In November 2022, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) co-hosted a virtual workshop on the importance and challenges of developing mucosal vaccines for SARS-COV-2. The highlights of this workshop have now been published as a report in npj Vaccines.Although vaccines currently available for COVID-19 are usually effective at preventing severe disease, hospitalizations and death, researchers recognize the need for improvement. A vaccine more effective at preventing transmission or infection with SARS-CoV-2 couldContinue…

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Polio cases in Africa linked to new oral vaccine | Science | AAAS

Last week, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) reported seven children, six in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and one in neighboring Burundi, had recently been paralyzed by poliovirus strains derived from a vaccine meant to prevent the disease. Unfortunately, such cases are so common—786 were reported last year in Africa, Yemen, and elsewhere—that these seven might not have stood out against the noise. But there was a key difference, GPEI said inContinue…

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NOT-AI-23-031: Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Advancing Research Needed to Develop a Coccidioidomycosis (Valley fever) Vaccine

Coccidioidomycosis, more commonly known as Valley fever, is a fungal infection of increasing public health concern in the United States. Clinical manifestations range from mild flu-like disease to severe disseminated infection that can require life-long therapy. Valley fever is most common to the arid regions of the southwestern United States, Mexico and Central and South America. In 2019, more than 20,000 cases were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and thisContinue…

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