Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

1 week ago | gavi.org | Linda Geddes

Antibodies from a man who has deliberately courted snakebites and injected himself with venom for nearly two decades have been used to create the most broadly protective antiserum yet. The three-agent cocktail protected mice against poisoning with venom from 19 of the world’s deadliest snakes, including various cobras, kraits, the Russell’s viper and western diamondback rattlesnake.

2 weeks ago | gavi.org | Linda Geddes

Receiving a booster vaccine in the same arm as your first shot could help to generate a more effective immune response more quickly, data suggests. If confirmed in larger groups of individuals and for other vaccines, the discovery could eventually help to improve immunisation strategies. The same-arm strategy could help achieve herd immunity faster – particularly important for rapidly mutating viruses where speed of response matters.

2 weeks ago | gavi.org | Linda Geddes

Scientists may have solved the decades-old mystery of how malaria infection triggers the development of Burkitt lymphoma – the most common childhood cancer in tropical countries in Africa. The finding highlights the importance of malaria vaccination and other strategies to combat the infection. Not only do they reduce the risk of getting sick or dying from malaria, but they could also reduce the risk of developing this type of cancer.

2 weeks ago | gavi.org | Linda Geddes

Emergency stockpiles are our way of making sure that vaccines that countries need for outbreak response are available very quickly and can be distributed to any country in the world in an equitable way. When there’s a disease outbreak, responding very quickly is usually the best way to make sure we minimise both the number of lives and communities who are affected by the disease in the short term, and, in some cases, experience long consequences of these outbreaks.

3 weeks ago | gavi.org | Linda Geddes

The spillover of H5N1 bird flu to cattle can likely be traced to a single event where a bird infected a cow in Texas during mid-late 2003, genetic analysis suggests. The virus then went undetected for around four months, transmitting to further cattle and then to various other species, including raccoons, cats and poultry. It now shows signs of permanent adaptation to mammalian hosts, the researchers said.