Poliomyelitis

Vaccination is the most cost-effective life-saving medical intervention 1 . However, substantial variation in individual immune responses to vaccination exists 2 . Lower vaccine immunogenicity, especially to oral vaccines, is often reported in developing countries 3,4,5 . Many intrinsic and extrinsic factors, such as age, genetics, pre-existing immunity, nutritional status and comorbidities contribute to the variations in vaccine responses 6 . Growing evidence shows that the composition of the intestinal microbiota, which is known to play an important role in the development and regulation of immune responses 7 , influences responses to vaccination 8,9,10 . Studies which have investigated this have shown that a higher relative abundance of the phylum Actinobacteria is consistently associated with higher vaccine responses and a higher relative abundance of Bacteroides with lower responses, while the association between the relative abundance of the phyla Firmicutes and...

The second episode of the HBO hit The Last Of Us opens with a scene in Jakarta, Indonesia. It's set in 2003, at the beginning of a (fictional) fungal pandemic that goes on to destroy the world as we know it. After an expert in fungal biology evaluates the body of an infected factory worker, she speaks quietly to a military official who has asked for her help controlling the pathogen's spread. "There is no vaccine," she says to his stricken face. It was true in real-world 2003, and it's true now: Although vaccines against bacterial and viral diseases abound, no vaccines against any fungal pathogens are licensed for human use. It's not for lack of trying: Dennis Dixon, who leads bacterial and fungal research at the National Institutes of Health, said there's been "continuous activity" aimed at developing fungal vaccines for decades. But a variety of challenges both scientific and economic have conscripted even more promising fungal vaccine c...

Health equity has been a concept familiar in the public health sector for many years. As the COVID-19 pandemic spread, the impacts on certain groups were made evident and acknowledged on a broader scale. Now health equity is part of daily conversations in the acute care world and in particular regarding infectious disease. Health equity and disparities play a role in emerging infectious diseases and disease transmission, and until those roles are better understood and incorporated into prevention efforts, health outcomes for those affected will be at risk. Health equity is defined as the state in which everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health. 1 Social determinants of health are the conditions in which people live, work, play, worship, and learn that impact health risks and outcomes. 1 Finally, health-related social needs are the individual factors that affect a person's ability to meet health goals. 2 A recent article described 4 main con...

world news Updated on Aug 22, 2020 08:52 AM IST The US company released the results of an independent laboratory evaluation of a topical medical formulation that mitigates coronavirus from entering the body through the nasal passages A chemist works at AstraZeneca's headquarters.(Reuters File Photo) Washington | By Press Trust of India | Posted by Kanishka Sarkar A US pharma company has successfully tested a Food and Drug Administration-approved over the counter ointment as the first line of defence against the deadly coronavirus that has so far killed over eight lakh people globally. Scientists associated with the project said the FDA-registered non-prescription over the counter (OTC) ointment has been proven to prevent, treat and kill viral infections including coronavirus. "As per the lab report states, no infectious virus was detected after 30 seconds of T3X treatment," the pharma company said in a...