Vaccine

Vaccine to quit smoking?

Well, there is aren’t too many approaches which have not been taken in trying to prevent smoking, but a new vaccine developed by Nabi,// a pharmaceutical company, promises new hope in preventing people from relapsing. The vaccine (NicVAX) binds nicotine and prevents it from reaching the brain, where it causes its stimulatory effects. In animal control experiments, the vaccine was effective in pre...

First Vaccine Designed for Africa Cleared for Testing in Humans

The first AIDS vaccine candidate designed specifically for Africa will enter human trials this summer. The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) announced on July 11 at the 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, that the Medicines Control Agency (MCA) of the United Kingdom has approved Phase I testing of a DNA vaccine based on HIV subtype A, the most commo...

New hope for cancer victims – will vaccine cure the deadly bug

One very deadly form of cancer is pancreatic cancer, though it isn’t very common. Globally it kills lakhs of people every year. And now there is some hope for the unfortunate victims. A new vaccine has been successfully tested on the pancreatic cancer victims and it has increased the survival rates in many. Vaccines are typically thought of as a way of preventing disease. In cancer, howe...

Vaccine for Alzheimer’s diseas

Researchers developing a vaccine against Alzheimer’s disease have shown that it seems to stop mice with the condition losing their memory. The results boost hopes that such vaccines could delay or prevent similar symptoms in people. The vaccines reduces the build-up of protein deposits in mouse brains -the other major indicator of Alzheimer’s diseases. The pharmaceutical company Elan,...

New vaccine helps allergy and asthma patients

Allergy and asthma patients can now breathe easy. Literally. A new vaccine called grass pollen vaccine has been shown to be effective in improving the quality of life and has also reduced medication requirements in these patients. These and other findings of this study are reported in the latest issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Samantha M. Walker, PhD, of the Imperia...

Man against HIV – new vaccine ready for human trials

A new vaccine called the TAT vaccine has been developed in Italy as the latest and most exciting HIV vaccine to date. And more importantly it has had a 71% success rate when tested on monkeys. This vaccine is now ready for human testing and this may be the brightest hope for mankind against the destructive HIV. Dr.Barbara Ensoli, Head of the Department of Virology at Italy’s National Hea...

New vaccine helps allergy and asthma patients

Allergy and asthma patients can now breathe easy. Literally. A new vaccine called grass pollen vaccine has been shown to be effective in improving the quality of life and has also reduced medication requirements in these patients. These and other findings of this study are reported in the latest issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Samantha M. Walker, PhD, of the Imper...

Development of AIDS vaccine -- Chiron Corp in talks with four Indian cos

A NOVEL research-cum-manufacturing agreement between Chiron Corp, the US-based vaccine major, and an Indian company for the development of a potential AIDS vaccine to halt the spread of the deadly disease in the country is in an advanced stage of finalisation. Two Hyderabad-based biotechnology/pharma companies -- Shanta Biotechnics and Biological E -- are reportedly the front-runners f...

HIV did not arise from polio vaccine

Researchers in four countries have unanimously opined that the deadly Human Immune Deficiency Virus (HIV) Epidemic did not arise from an oral polio vaccine used in Africa in the 1950s and say rumours suggesting the contrary have no scientific evidence to back them up. The studies, from researchers in the US, UK, France and Germany, should help free the polio vaccine manufactured by the W...

Double impact vaccine

The virus strain which produces the measles vaccine is effective for another purpose - fighting lymphoma, a group of cancers that originate in the lymphatic system. The Scientists from Mayo clinic department of molecular medicine have found that the measles vaccine virus caused remission of lymphoma in mice injected with human cells containing the cancer.// Adele Fielding, lead...

Health Officials Recommend Flu Vaccine

In the past, they could be signs of flu. These days, people fear the symptoms could mean anthrax. That is one reason they are willing to wait in hours-long lines to get a shot of influenza vaccine this year: They want to avoid both the flu and anthrax panic. "We're getting a tremendous amount of calls and a tremendous response'' to flu vaccination clinics, said Cindy Schulte of the Schenectady Co...

Smallpox Vaccine May Help Fight Cervical Cancer

A modified version of the smallpox vaccine is being tested against cervical cancer. Human papilloma virus (HPV) is associated with 95% of cervical cancer cases, but not everyone with the virus develops the cancer. Cervical cancer affects about 465,000 women worldwide each year and causes 300,000 deaths. If it is diagnosed and treated in its earliest stages there is a high survival rate. // <b...

High Demand for a child vaccine

High demand for a new vaccine against childhood pneumonia, meningitis and ear infections has led to a shortage around the country. Meanwhile, doctors are directing the supplies they do have to children// who run the highest risk of infection, such as those with sickle cell anemia, the AIDS virus or other diseases that undermine the immune system. PREVNAR fights the bacterium streptoco...

A new vaccine for leukemia

A new vaccine has been developed by a research team from Southampton University,which works by instigating the body's immune system to fight lymphoma,a cancer of the immune cells in the blood.//The lymphoma cells are not usually identified by the body's immune system, and so can multiply diversely. By, using the new technique, scientists are able to remove a sample of tumour ce...

Panacea Biotech To Market Anthrax Vaccine

Panacea Biotech has bagged the registration, production and marketing rights of the anti-anthrax vaccine developed by the Centre for Biotechnology in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). It is expected that the vaccine would be in the market in 3-4 months. The Company has made a milestone payment to JNU for the exclusive rights. In addition, it will pay the university a royalty on sales. Howeve...

New Prostate Cancer Vaccine Shows Promise

Preliminary results from a study on a vaccine made from the immune system cells of prostate cancer patients show it to be a promising. Dr. Johannes Vieweg, associate professor of urology and an assistant professor of immunology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, tested the vaccine on 13 men with metastatic prostate cancer.// The vaccine uses the men's own dendritic cells, ex...

Shortage of MMR vaccine

The vaccine that protects children against measles, mumps and rubella is in short supply. The MMR vaccine joins a growing list of scarce drugs, with shortfalls caused by production problems, fewer drugmakers// and pharmaceutical companies choosing to stop making some products. The situation is so bad that 8 of the 11 recommended childhood vaccines are in short supply, including tetanus...

Anthrax vaccine produced

Indian scientists have produced a more effective vaccine for anthrax and they claim that it could be less mephitic and longer lasting than that which is presently available.It has been developed by a team, from the Centre for Biotechnology// at Jawaharlal Nehru University, led by Dr Rakesh Bhatnagar. It is made up of harmless mutant forms of three key proteins that together make the to...

Problematic Use of smallpox vaccine

The USA is accumulating an abundant supply of smallpox vaccine, but health officials say they are not recommending that it be widely used- yet. The vaccine currently on hand, 16.8 million doses in a government stockpile// and more than 80 million doses that drug maker Aventis Pasteur says it will add to that, is safe and effective but can cause problems. Many people develop painful swelling aroun...

Meningitis C vaccine a cost-effective success

Researchers say the introduction of meningitis C vaccine into the UK has not only reduced the incidence of the disease in children and young people, but has done so cost-effectively.// Researchers assessed the cost-effectiveness of the meningitis C campaign in young people up to the age of 19. Before the immunisation programme’s introduction in December 1998, meningitis C affected app...

Drug Firm Offers to Donate Smallpox Vaccine

There is no treatment for smallpox, which kills about 30% of its victims and leaves others covered in sores. But giving a vaccine within days of exposure can protect against illness. A French drug company offered to donate up to 90 million doses of decades-old smallpox vaccine and the United States said it would accept the supplies if they are still effective against the deadly disease. // <br...

Vaccine guards against shingles

A slight variation of a chicken pox vaccine gave good protection to those at high risk of shingles. The elder population, and those with impaired immunity because of cancer, have a high rate of shingles a viral infection caused by the same virus that gives rise to chicken pox. //Most people recover from chicken pox, a common childhood infection, without incident. But the virus lingers in nerve ce...

Experimental SARS Vaccine

Latest research reveals a SARS vaccine may be on the horizon. Researchers from the National Institutes of Health report promising results from a study involving eight African green monkeys. Four of the monkeys were // immunized against the SARS virus using an intranasal vaccine made from a parainfluenza vaccine originally developed for children. The vaccine was reengineered to express a major ant...

GlaxoSmithKline to Supply United States with 8 Million flu vaccine, Fluarix

GlaxoSmithKline will supply 8 million doses of its flu vaccine, Fluarix. This dosage is twice the amount GSK shipped to US last year. This amount of 8 million doses only represents about 10% of the demand from the US, due to increased need for vaccines against flu.// The immense need for vaccination increased due to large vaccination awareness programs organized in the US during recent years, due...

Hepatitis B Vaccine To Be Included In National Immunization Programme

India's Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss Monday said that the government would include Hepatitis B vaccination under its national immunisation programme// as it has been emerging as a "problem greater than AIDS." Addressing the valedictory function of an Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-World Health Organisation (WHO) organised training workshop on laboratory diagnosis of lepto...

New Vaccines To Combat Rotavirus

Rotavirus which causes severe diarrhea can be combated with two new vaccines, according to clinical trials. The New England Journal of Medicine has published this report.// The symptoms can be reduced by as much as by between 85% to 100%. The affliction affects children in large numbers. Experts say the unqualified success of two drugs in these larger trials, without negative side ef...

Nigerian Farmers To Import Bird Flu Vaccine From Israel

Spread of bird flu across nine states in Nigeria has forced the import of nearly 1 million doses of bird flu vaccine from Israel// The poultry farmers in Nigeria would soon receive their share of the imported bird flu vaccine to protect themselves against the deadly infection. Bird flu has now spread to Yobe and Nasarawa states, according to official reports. No case of human-human bi...

The importance of vaccines

According to health policy experts felt that governments and societies must implement revolutionary changes in their approach to vaccines and preventive medicine if they want to ensure the health and welfare of their citizens.// Rino Rappuoli, Henry J. Miller, and Stanley Falkow, felt that vaccination is considered the most effective medical intervention and there has never been a better time tha...

Vaccine for septic conditions

According to pre-clinical study it is observed that it is possible to protect against sepsis. When bacteria invade the bloodstream of a patient with suppressed immunity, sepsis might result.// This condition of overwhelming infection can be fateful. And treatment with antibiotics is often ineffective. Researchers at The Scripps Institute in the US have been looking at a vaccine for se...

Perceived stress decreases vaccine response

Researchers have found in a new study that people who have felt psychologically low or under stress had a lower response to a meningitis vaccine than expected.// Undergraduate students in the UK all get a vaccination against meningitis, to protect them from an outbreak of this potentially fatal brain infection. So they form an ideal population for studying the effects of stress on immune response...

New AIDS vaccine may be in the offing

An article published in an online issue of Nature Medicine by researchers in Rene Descartes University has reported a stunning discovery of a bold new type of vaccine which may one day let people quit their AIDS drugs. The study which was carried// out on monkeys showed promising results, and if confirmed and adapted in humans may signal a major new therapeutic approach to HIV. The res...

New lung cancer vaccine on the anvil

Researchers from Boston's Dana Farber Cancer Institute, led by Glenn Dranoff, MD,have reported in the February issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology that vaccines made from patients' own tumors are safe and future enhancements could make them a powerful new treatment for deadly cancers. Researchers claim that the tumors grow out of control when the T-cells -- which orchestrate immune system a...

AIDS vaccine falls short but shows some promise

Researchers at a California-based company announced the initial results of the three-year trial. The FDA has said it would consider approving the vaccine if it were 30 percent effective, but the reduction of infection among the entire sample of volunteers, including all racial groups, was 3.8 percent. A principal investigator in the study, said the study "did not show a statistically signi...

A new Vaccine for Pneumonia

Researchers show a new type of vaccine can reduce the incidence of pneumonia in children with and without human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). // Acute respiratory infections are a major cause of death in children under age 5. Additionally, pneumonia is becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics. Doctors from around the world are in search of new methods to treat the illness.Resear...

Vaccine Reduces antibiotic-resistant infections in Children

Children who receive a vaccine to protect them against severe strains of the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae are less likely to contract a serious disease, according to a new study.// Researchers from Harvard Medical School studied more than 740 children who lived in 16 diverse communities throughout Massachusetts. Results of the study show 28 percent of the children carried a strai...

New vaccine for brain cancer

For 18 years, Keith Black, M.D., from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles has been searching for an effective treatment for brain cancer. While his research moves forward, he’s helping patients live longer along the way.//Latest research involves an effective brain tumor vaccine. Dr. Black says brain tumors try to hide proteins on the tumor cell surface that the immune system c...

New Vaccine for SARS Coming Soon

A new study shows a vaccine made from the common cold virus may induce the immune system to help fight the SARS virus.//Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention injected six monkeys with a genetically altered cold virus that is similar to parts of the SARS coronavirus. A new form of the coronavirus, called SARS-CoV, was discovered earlier this year. The monkeys were given...

The Effectiveness Of Chickenpox Vaccine Questioned

Latest research shows the chickenpox vaccine loses some of its effectiveness in the first year after vaccination.// Parents are encouraged to vaccinate their children against chickenpox between 12 months and 18 months. Consequently, researchers were prompted to further investigate the vaccine after chickenpox outbreaks were reported among vaccinated individuals. Researchers studied near...

SARS vaccine shows promise in Animal Testing

SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, is a coronavirus. Similar viruses infect the pigs and other animals. It emerged in southern China in late 2002 and spread to more than two dozen countries on four continents before it was contained last summer. // More than 8,000 people worldwide were sickened, and at least 774 died.Civet cats and other mongoose-like animals that are sold in live food m...

A Vaccine For Non – Hodgkin’s Lymphom

At present researchers have discovered vaccines to various diseases such as flu, measles, whooping cough and other illnesses. Now, scientists are testing vaccines to keep cancer from coming back. // Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is a cancer of the lymph system that almost always comes back, even after chemotherapy and eventually most of these patients ultimately develop resistant disease and...