vaccines

A review of 14 studies and data from more than 130 million patients has found an association between the use of drugs such as anti-inflammatory drugs, antibiotics and vaccines and a reduced risk of dementia. The authors recall that “the fact that a particular drug is associated with an altered risk of dementia does not necessarily mean that it causes or helps against it.” However, “pooling these huge health data sets provides a source of evidence that can help us decide which drugs to try first.” The research is published in the journal Alzheimer's and Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions. 

The new US president, Donald Trump, announced on his first day that the country will leave the World Health Organisation (WHO) within the next twelve months. The reasons behind the decision, according to him, are the ‘mismanagement of the covid-19 pandemic and other global health crises’, as well as ‘disproportionate payments compared to other countries’ dues’.

A team led by the CEU San Pablo University has analysed the role of vaccination against influenza on the risk of infection and mortality. The meta-analysis, published in European Respiratory Review, includes 192 articles from different countries over the last 20 years and includes data from more than 6.5 million patients. The results show that the level of protection varies according to age group and influenza subtype. Although it does not reduce the risk of infection for influenza A H3N2 in those over 65 years of age, nor does it show a reduction in mortality for influenza B - which is less associated with mortality than influenza A - overall, vaccination is shown to be effective in both preventing infection and reducing mortality.

The RH5.1/Matrix-M vaccine is effective and safe against malaria, according to a phase 2b clinical trial in infants in Burkina Faso published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Two other vaccines are already approved against malaria, a disease caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, but this one acts at a different stage of the disease: when the malaria parasite is present in the blood. The other two vaccines attack the parasite when reaches the liver.

Antimicrobial resistance caused around 5 million deaths worldwide in 2019. The use of vaccines has the potential to reduce these deaths - 515,000 fewer deaths per year - according to a report published by the WHO. The work focused on 24 pathogens and 44 vaccines, licensed by regulatory agencies, in clinical development or in development. By counting existing vaccines alone, antibiotic use could be reduced by 142 million daily doses per year.  

After the introduction of a shingles vaccine (Zostavax) in 2006, several studies suggested that the risk of dementia might be lower in people who had received the vaccine, although the results were inconclusive. In many countries Zostavax has been withdrawn and replaced by a much more effective vaccine (Shingrix). A study published today in Nature Medicine suggests that this new recombinant shingles vaccine, Shingrix, is associated with a greater reduction in the risk of dementia compared to Zostavax and vaccines against other types of infections.

Global childhood immunisation coverage stagnated in 2023, with 2.7 million more children unvaccinated or under-vaccinated than at pre-pandemic levels in 2019. This is one of the data published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF in the World Health Organization's Worldwide Estimates of National Immunisation Coverage (WUENIC), which captures global vaccination trends against 14 diseases. More than half of unvaccinated children live in 31 countries with fragile and conflict-affected environments. 

Research led by the Hospital del Mar Research Institute (Barcelona) and involving researchers from CIMA (University of Navarra) and Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona) has revealed the existence of microproteins present almost exclusively in hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common form of liver cancer. These structures, which appear to be found in a significant percentage of patients, could be used to develop specific vaccines against this type of tumour. The results are published in the journal Science Advances.

The Science group is simultaneously publishing four papers (two in the journal Science, one in Science Immunology and one in Science Translational Medicine) that include advances in a sequential vaccination strategy for an effective HIV vaccine. The methods employed aim to obtain broad-spectrum neutralising antibodies and one of the proposals is already in clinical trials. 

The NEJM publishes the results of a phase III clinical trial conducted by GSK that had to be suspended due to a safety signal. The study shows that newborns of vaccinated mothers had a lower risk of experiencing severe events associated with the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), but also a higher risk of being born prematurely.