The World Health Organization held a conference to assess the status of testing and eventual licensing of two candidate Ebola virus vaccines. The agenda and list of participants and the final report are available. I was interested in the following list of key expected milestones: October 2014: Mechanisms for evaluating and sharing data in real time must be …
WHO assessment of experimental Ebola virus vaccines Read More »
I cannot pass up the opportunity to point out this wonderful quote by Ginia Ballafante in her NY Times piece, Fear of Vaccines Goes Viral. The article starts by noting an article on plummeting vaccination rates in Los Angeles: The piece had the virtue of offering New Yorkers yet another opportunity to feel smugly superior to …
The cover of this week’s issue of Businessweek declares that ‘Ebola is coming’ in letters colored like blood, with the subtitle ‘The US had a chance to stop the virus in its tracks. It missed’. Although the article presents a good analysis of the hurdles in developing antibody therapy for Ebola virus infection, the cover …
Could the Ebola virus epidemic have been prevented? Read More »
On episode #302 of the science show This Week in Virology, the TWiVers discuss the growing Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, and an epidemic of respiratory disease in the US caused by enterovirus D68. You can find TWiV #302 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
Antigenic variation is a hallmark of influenza virus that allows the virus to evade host defenses. Consequently influenza vaccines need to be reformulated frequently to keep up with changing viruses. In contrast, antigenic variation is not a hallmark of poliovirus – the same poliovirus vaccines have been used for nearly 60 years to control infections by …
On episode #298 of the science show This Week in Virology, the TWiV gang answers follow-up questions about the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, then discuss treatment of disseminated multiple myeloma with oncolytic measles virus. You can find TWiV #298 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
