Category: Vaccine

A DNA signature might explain why a century-old vaccine rouses the immune system more strongly in some people than in others1.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00005-y

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Why the immune response to a vaccine varies from person to person - Nature.com

Bomb blast kills at least five police officers deployed to protect polio vaccination workers in northwestern Pakistan.

Islamabad, Pakistan At least five police officers have been killed and nearly two dozen others wounded after an explosive device targeted their vehicle during a polio vaccination drive in northwestern Pakistan.

Officials told Al Jazeera the blast took place early morning on Monday in Bajaur, a tribal district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province neighbouring Afghanistan, when Pakistan began its latest round of the vaccination campaign.

Five of those wounded were in critical condition and have been shifted to the provincial capital, Peshawar, about 133km (82 miles) south of Bajaur.

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The blast took place early in the morning when the police team went out for the polio vaccination drive. We have shifted most of the injured to local hospital in Bajaur while critical patients were sent to Peshawar, Bilal Faizi, spokesperson for the provincial rescue services, told Al Jazeera.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

In recent years, the Pakistan Taliban, also known by the acronym TTP, has killed dozens of polio vaccination workers and security officials in Pakistan.

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Resistance to the polio immunisation drive grew in Pakistan after the CIA, the intelligence agency of the United States, organised a fake vaccination drive to track Osama bin Laden, who was killed in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad in 2011.

Religious leaders in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region also spread misinformation that the vaccine contained traces of pork and alcohol, which are forbidden in Islam.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries yet to be declared free of the wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV-1) disease.

For a country to be recognised free of polio, it should show an absence of WPV-1 transmission for at least three consecutive years, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

Pakistan reported six polio cases in 2023 a considerable improvement from 2022 when 20 cases were reported across the country.

The attack on the polio vaccination team came amid a dramatic surge in violent incidents in Pakistan.

According to data compiled by the Pakistan Institute of Conflict and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based research organisation, more than 600 violent attacks took place in the country in 2023, an increase of 70 percent from the preceding year, killing more than 950 people.

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Blast in Pakistan kills five police officers during polio vaccination drive - Al Jazeera English

New research shows that the recently emerged BA.2.86 omicron subvariant of the virus that causes COVID-19 can be neutralized by bivalent mRNA vaccine-induced antibodies in the blood, which explains why this variant did not cause a widespread surge as previously feared.

However, the study in cell cultures showed this SARS-CoV-2 variant can infect human cells that line the lower lung and engage in virus-host cell membrane fusion more efficiently, two features linked to severe disease symptoms.

The study is published today (Jan. 8, 2024) in the journal Cell.

The BA.2.86 variant of omicron is the ancestor of the currently dominating JN.1 and has about 60 more spike protein mutations than the original, or parent, coronavirus, including over 30 more than its close omicron relatives the early BA.2 variant and the recently dominant XBB.1.5 variant among them. These mutations led scientists to worry that so many changes would make the variant as tough to contain as the initial omicron outbreak in 2021-22.

We found that, surprisingly, despite all those 60 mutations combined together, BA.2.86 is not as immune-evasive as the XBB.1.5 variant, which until recently had been dominating the pandemic for months. Thats good news, saidShan-Lu Liu, senior author the study and a virology professor in theDepartment ofVeterinary Biosciencesat The Ohio State University.

But BA.2.86 appears to have increased infectivity of human lung epithelial cells compared to all omicron variants, so thats a little worrisome. And, consistent with infectivity, it also has increased fusion activity with human lung epithelial cells, said Liu, also a professor in the Departmentof Microbial Infection and Immunity. That raises a potential concern about whether or not this virus is more pathogenic compared to recent omicron variants.

The published findings coincide with reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that after a brief increase in BA.2.86 infections, its derived sublineage JN.1 rapidly gained ground in the United States, responsible for an estimated 62% of COVID-19 cases as of Jan. 6.

First detected in July in Europe and the Middle East, BA.2.86 and its sublineages have since been spreading with increasing frequency in different parts of the world. On Nov. 22, the World Health Organization classified BA.2.86 and sublineages as variants of interest.

The Ohio State researchers analyzed neutralizing antibodies in blood serum samples from health care professionals who had received three monovalent vaccine doses or two monovalent vaccines followed by one bivalent vaccine booster, and from first responders who had COVID-19 infections during the wave dominated by the XBB.1.5 variant. They compared the ability of neutralizing antibodies to block infection by BA.2.86, an XBB-derived variant known as FLip, the parent virus and several omicron variants.

Overall, antibodies produced by serum from the bivalent vaccine-dosed health care professionals were more efficient at neutralizing BA.2.86 than they were at neutralizing other omicron variants, including XBB.1.5. In contrast, the three monovalent vaccines and previous XBB.1.5 infection were barely effective in blocking infection by BA.2.86.

People who have had a COVID-19 infection should remember that omicron variants are less virulent compared to prior variants such as delta, meaning they dont make most people very sick, Liu said. If you have less severe disease, the antibodies generated by infection are low almost 10-fold lower than vaccine-induced antibodies. That is why you cannot rely on natural infection alone for immunity.

While bivalent vaccine can still neutralize BA.2.86, the efficiency is clearly reduced. Therefore, it is important to get the newest booster vaccine, which is formulated with only XBB.1.5 and has been shown to be effective against BA.2.86, Liu added.

However, the researchers were surprised to find that a monoclonal antibody known as S309, which has been shown to inhibit almost all other major omicron variants, does not neutralize BA.2.86. Molecular modeling revealed that some of the BA.2.86 mutations in the spike protein might have changed the conformation and rendered S309 unable to neutralize the new variant, Liu said.

Additional experiments pointed to the potential for BA.2.86 to be more likely to cause severe disease than its omicron relatives. Researchers found BA.2.86 was more efficient at infecting a cell line derived from the human lower airway epithelium in the lung. Infection of these cells is greatly facilitated through a cell surface protein, known as TMPRSS2, to promote membrane fusion, and this protein is a known contributor to SARS-CoV-2 infection and disease symptoms in the respiratory tract.

First author Panke Qu, a graduate student in Lius lab, conducted the cell-culture studies using pseudoviruses a non-infectious viral core surrounded by different SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins on the surface structured to match known variants.

Because we used a pseudovirus, we need to confirm these findings using the real virus, said Liu, also associate director of Ohio StatesCenter for Retrovirus Researchand a program co-director of theViruses and Emerging Pathogens Programin Ohio States Infectious Diseases Institute. But from our past experience, we know that the infectivity in human epithelial cell lines provides very important information. The concern is whether or not this variant, as well as its descendants including JN.1, will have an increased tendency to infect human lung epithelial cells similar to the parental virus that launched the pandemic in 2020.

Liu noted that other labs have recently suggested that JN.1, one of fastest-growing descendants of BA.2.86, is much more resistant to neutralizing antibodies that are effective against BA.2.86.

We know that coronaviruses are prone to viral recombination, which can lead to new variants with huge numbers of mutations that could have increased immune evasion but also disease severity, he said. Thats why surveillance of the variants is still very important, even though we are in the end of year four of the pandemic.

This work was supported by anonymous donor funds, the National Institutes of Health, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, the Glenn Barber Fellowship from Ohio States College of Veterinary Medicine, the Robert J. Anthony Fund for Cardiovascular Research, and Ohio States Comprehensive Cancer Center and Center for Clinical and Translational Science.

Additional co-authors, all from Ohio State, are Kai Xu, Julia Faraone, Negin Goodarzi, Yi-Min Zheng, Claire Carlin, Joseph Bednash, Jeffrey Horowitz, Rama Mallampalli, Linda Saif, Eugene Oltz, Daniel Jones and Richard Gumina.

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SARS-CoV-2 BA.2.86 is less resistant to vaccine, but may be a problem in the lung - The Ohio State University News

Vaccines and immunisation

A game that teaches people how to spot climate misinformation is now being rolled out with the same cantankerous central character to combat vaccine hesitancy in the developing world

Most people in western countries would recognise the archetypal cranky uncle the cantankerous older relative who lays claim to common sense as they dismiss climate change as a socialist plot or vaccines as a conspiracy perpetuated by big pharma.

Its a character that John Cook knew well because, like a lot of us, he had someone like that in his family.

Cook is an academic at the University of Melbourne who researches climate change misinformation and the best ways to combat it.

So when he was building a game that would teach people how to spot climate misinformation, the part-time cartoonist drew a cranky uncle as the central character.

Since the Cranky Uncle game was launched in late 2020, it has been used by tens of thousands of people around the world.

But when Unicef asked Cook if he could adapt his game to combat misinformation about vaccinations in the developing world, he hesitated.

Everyone has a variation of that cranky uncle, Cook says. But climate misinformation is a very western construct and now we are going into countries that are culturally quite different.

But were finding that the cranky uncle is a universal human experience.

The new Cranky Uncle vaccine game has already been launched in Tanzania, and trials have been completed in Kenya, Uganda and Ghana, with rollouts planned in more countries, including Pakistan.

In 2019, the World Health Organization named vaccine hesitancy the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines which was often underpinned by misinformation, as one of the 10 biggest threats to global health.

Unicef says some 20 million children missed one or more routine vaccines in 2022. Vaccination numbers are improving in some areas, but have mostly not caught up with pre-pandemic figures. Africa has the highest number of unvaccinated and under-vaccinated children.

The basis for the game is research by Cook and other social science colleagues that tested how best to combat misinformation.

A standard approach to debunking a myth might be to first state the piece of misinformation, such as climate change is caused by the sun or vaccines are dangerous because a child got sick after having a jab, and then explain the facts.

But Cook and others have developed an approach which perhaps ironically is known as the inoculation technique, where people are taught common modes of arguing used by cranky uncles before they are exposed to the myths they spread.

Weve found through a number of studies that inoculation has some powerful benefits, such as it converts immunity across topics, says Cook.

The original Cranky Uncle climate game has been downloaded more than 55,000 times from the Apple app store, but data isnt available for Android downloads. The game is available in 12 languages as well as a teachers guide.

Before launching the vaccine version of the game, Cook says, a review of studies into vaccine misinformation found the two most pervasive arguments were that natural remedies were always the best approach to fighting disease and a fallacy known as false cause.

The false cause fallacy comes usually in the form of an anecdote that a person fell ill after having a vaccination, with a spurious link made back to the vaccine.

In the game, players are presented with a healthcare worker and the Cranky Uncle character.

Players learn 10 tricks or fallacies that the Cranky Uncle will use to misinform them. The job of the player is to take a quiz and spot the fallacies.

The more often players spot the right fallacy such as when the uncle is using the false cause trick or claiming a conspiracy the angrier the uncle becomes.

Cook and his wife Wendy, a graphic designer, worked on the game with Unicef, the not-for-profit Sabin Vaccine Institute and the public health consultancy Irimi.

Kate Hopkins directs research on vaccine acceptance at Sabin and ran workshops with locals and healthcare workers to co-design the game in west Africa.

Hopkins says results from trials of the game in Kenya, Uganda and Ghana have delivered statistically significant shifts in vaccine attitudes.

Weve seen a positive increase in attitudes to vaccinations and a positive increase in peoples discernment between facts and fallacies.

The characters are recognisable to the players and the scripts are changed across countries and theyre specific to the local communities.

Chelsey Lepage, at Irimi, ran workshops developing the game in east Africa. She says there are many people who are reluctant to be vaccinated because they think vaccines are part of a conspiracy.

A lot of people feel vaccines are a way to reduce African populations, so you can understand why these things take root, she says.

Cook had to redraw the Cranky Uncle character several times to reflect local populations. One version with the character in a suit for the Ugandan game had to be redrawn because in Uganda a blazer confers authority, Lepage says.

Lepage says they also added the character of a health worker, whose job in the game is to deliver factual information.

This is in part behaviour change messaging. We want people to change their behaviours and we also need trusted messengers.

Cook says he hopes the game will help people to become better critical thinkers whether that is around vaccinations, climate change or any other public debate.

I had 15 years immersed in climate misinformation and so this was a whole new realm.

I was getting outside of my lane. But its vindication that this approach works across topics.

This article was amended on 8 January 2024 to correct the number of languages in which the Cranky Uncle game is available.

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Climate and vaccine misinformation seemed worlds apart but it turned out the Cranky Uncle was a universal figure - The Guardian

Media

By Ariel Zilber

Published Jan. 8, 2024

Updated Jan. 8, 2024, 6:50 p.m. ET

Notorious germaphobe Howard Stern revealed to his listeners Monday that he was absent from the SiriusXM airwaves last week because he contracted the coronavirus.

Stern, who managed to avoid getting COVID-19 since the pandemic hit the US by living a hermit-like lifestyle, told his audience Monday that his luck finally ran out.

See if we can get through this show. We were supposed to be back last week. We werent, Stern said on Monday. His comments were reported by Mediaite.

Because I got COVID-19.

Stern, 69, cautioned his audience that this is not an illness to be trifled with.

I just want to announce something. COVID is really bad, he added. You do not want COVID. Oh fk.

Stern did not say how he thinks he contracted the virus.

Man, I went through hell Ive really never been this sick, he said.

Stern also thanked those who helped develop the vaccine against COVID-19.

What a wallop this thing is can you imagine if we didnt have the vaccine?

Last September, Stern revealed that his paranoia over getting COVID led to arguments with his wife, Beth Stern.

Im going crazy with this, Stern said at the time.

My wife yelled at me last night. We got into a fight.

The self-proclaimed King of All Media added: You know how paranoid I am about getting COVID. I havent gotten it, and Im pretty safe, and I really dont want to get it.

Last year, Sterns friend Bill Maher, the host of HBOs Real Time, wondered aloud whether he would get a chance to hang out with his buddy in the post-pandemic era.

The HBO star said he was unsure whether Stern would ever leave the house due to his well-documented fear of being exposed to the virus.

I have a long, storied history, ups and downs with that man, and I find it so sad these days that I cant see him because of the pandemic, Maher lamented during an interview with comedian Kevin Nealon on his Club Random podcast.

We dont agree on that, Maher said. Not that I think it has made us not like each other.

Stern has frequently lashed out at critics who accuse him of going woke saying that he wears the title proudly and touting his COVID-19 vaccination.

And if woke means I cant get behind Trump, which is what I think it means, or that I support people who want to be transgender or Im for the vaccine, dude, call me woke as you fking want, Stern said in an on-air rant in September.

In October 2022, Page Six was the first to report that Stern emerged from his apocalypse bunker and went out to dinner for the first time since the onset of the pandemic in the spring of 2020.

The shock jock was spotted at a Williamsburg eatery alongside Hollywood stars Jennifer Aniston, close friend Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Hamm, Justin Theroux and Jason Bateman.

I really had an exhausting weekend, emotionally, physically, he said on his radio show just days after his rare outing.

For the first time in two years, I ventured out of the house.

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Two doses of the recombinant zoster vaccine provided strong protection over 4 years, even in patients taking corticosteroids who are at higher risk for herpes zoster, also known as shingles, according to researchers.

Currently, the CDC recommends that adults aged 50 years and older receive two doses of the recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV) separated by a period of 2 to 6 months.

Ousseny Zerbo, PhD, a research scientist in the Vaccine Study Center at Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research, and colleagues explained that clinical trials of RZV demonstrated effectiveness that did not wane substantially during at least 7 years of follow-up.

However, the long-term effectiveness of RZV has not been extensively studied in real-world settings, they wrote in Annals of Internal Medicine.

The researchers aimed to expand literature through a prospective cohort study where participants received either one, two or no doses of RZV from Jan. 1, 2018, through Dec. 31, 2022.

The cohort consisted of 1,996,885 participants aged 50 years and older who contributed 7.6 million person-years of follow-up. During the study period, 38% received at least one dose and 29% received two doses.

The researchers found that, after adjustment for covariates, the overall vaccine effectiveness was 64% for one dose of RZV and 76% for two doses.

After one RZV dose, vaccine effectiveness was:

In contrast, among those fully vaccinated, RZV vaccine effectiveness was:

Zerbo and colleagues noted that vaccine effectiveness was slightly stronger in those fully vaccinated before age 65 years and lower in those who were immunocompromised due to corticosteroid use when they were vaccinated. Overall, vaccine effectiveness was 65% in persons who received corticosteroids before vaccination vs. 77% in those who did not.

However, the overall effectiveness of two RZV doses in the study was lower than that found in previous clinical trials, where RZV was 97% effective in those aged 50 years and older and 90% effective in those aged 70 years and older.

One reason our [vaccine effectiveness] estimate was lower than the estimates in the trials may be that our case ascertainment was less specific than in the trials, where cases were confirmed by polymerase chain reaction testing, the researchers wrote.

There were multiple limitations in the study, according to Zerbo and colleagues. For example, the population was limited to those with health insurance and thus not representative of other groups.

Our finding that the effectiveness of [one] dose decreased after a year further supports the current recommendation for a second dose, Zerbo and colleagues concluded.

Peter Gulick, DO

The real-world trial shows that the vaccine efficacy of the recombinant vaccine is over 70% in both immune-competent and compromised patients and is durable for 4 years.

The data overall substantiate the trial data and should be compelling enough to offer this vaccine in all patients older than 50 years of age and greater who are immunocompetent and immunocompromised because we know that over 30% of people aged older than 50 years get shingles and 13% to 20% will get post-herpetic neuralgia.

The efficacy of the recombinant vaccine in clinical trials to prevent shingles in ages 50 years and up is 97.2% in the first year. In those aged older than 70 years, it was 91.3% effective. The response was good regardless of age and immune status. Even after stem cell transplant or steroids, the response rate was 68% to 85%.

I take care of a large population of patients with HIV and offer it to my older population aged older than 50 years as well as my younger population if they are immunocompromised.

The vaccine is a recombinant vaccine, so it can be given to individuals who are immunocompetent as well as immunocompromised, unlike the live shingles vaccine, which is given to only immunocompetent patients.

Peter Gulick, DO

Osteopathic physician Associate professor of medicine, Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine Member, American Osteopathic Association and Michigan Osteopathic Association

Disclosures: Gulick reports no relevant financial disclosures.

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Zerbo O, et al. Ann Intern Med. 2023;doi:10.7326/M23-2023.

Disclosures: Zerbo reports receiving support from the CDC. Please see the study for all other authors relevant financial disclosures.

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Two doses of recombinant zoster vaccine provide strong protection against shingles - Healio

Health officials are warning of more potential exposures to the measles virus in Philadelphia as confirmed cases are on the rise.

As of Monday, there are eight confirmed cases of measles connected to this outbreak, officials said. Seven are in Philadelphia and one is a non-Philadelphia case.

Leloen espaol aqu.

Philadelphia health officials say the virus is extremely contagious for people who aren't vaccinated.

"90% of people who are not immune who get exposed to measles, will get measles," Health Commissioner Dr. Cheryl Bettigole said. "So it's extremely contagious and that's why we take this so seriously."

Confirmed measles cases are among unvaccinated residents, according to officials. If you believe you have been exposed, officials are urging you to quarantine and contact your medical provider.

This report comes nearly two weeks after the health department warned of possible exposure to the measles virus at the Jefferson Health Building located at 33 South 9th Street or 833 Chestnut Street on Tuesday, Dec. 19.

The Health Department has been working to contact anyone who was at the following locations to let them know they may have been exposed:

If you were in any of these buildings at these times and are not immune to the virus, officials say you should take the following steps:

Two cases that are under investigation by officials were potentially exposed because one confirmed case went to day care instead of quarantining, the health department said.

"Unfortunately, we had two children at that day care who did get measles and were hospitalized," Bettigole said. "Fortunately one of those children has been discharged."

"Philadelphia is a city where we believe in a duty to take care of each other. We are asking all city residents who may have been exposed to measles to do their part to ensure that no additional infants are harmed by this infection," Bettigole said in a statement.

"While 93 percent of Philadelphia children are vaccinated against measles, it remains a dangerous virus. The Health Department strongly encourages everyone who is unvaccinated to seek out a vaccine," the Health Department said.

The Health Department offers the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine for free at City health centers.

Any child in Philadelphia can get vaccinated at any City health center. You can contact their call center at (215) 685-2933 to make an appointment.

They are also offering walk-in MMR vaccines at three City health centers for a limited time. Any Philadelphia resident is eligible. Visit these three locations Monday through Thursday, from 10 a.m. noon and 1 3 p.m.:

During these walk-in hours, you dont need an appointment. Theres no copay or fee for the vaccine, and you dont even need an ID just a piece of mail with your address on it.

The health department says you are protected from the virus if you:

Measles is a virus that can pass from person to person through direct contact or through the air by droplets from coughing or sneezing, according to officials.

Symptoms of measles include fever, running nose, cough, puffy eyes and a rash, officials said.

Excerpt from:

8 confirmed cases of measles. Health Department urging people to get free vaccines - NBC 10 Philadelphia

Part 1: This is the first of a three-part series on how Stanford Medicine researchers are designing vaccines that might protect people from not merely individual viral strains but broad ranges of them. The ultimate goal: a vaccine with coverage so broad it can protect against viruses never before encountered.

There were germs way before there were people. Fortunately, we've made friends or at least signed peace treaties with many of them. But others remain our enemies. Still others are a mutation or two away from slipping from one category into another.

The annual sniffling season is upon us, as cases of COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus and perennial old-timer influenza pile up. Lurking in the background: wild cards such as a killer avian influenza virus that is, as yet, not easily transmitted from one human to another.

"During a wave of infections back in the 1990s, certain bird flu strains were killing half of the people who were getting them," said David Relman, MD, a professor of microbiology and immunology and of infectious diseases, and the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor. "Fortunately, that wave petered out -- but what if that virus had mutated to become more transmissible among human beings?"

Relman, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, thinks a lot about potential, emergent and present microbial threats. (CISAC brings together natural and social scientists to take on the world's most critical security issues.)

"Thousands of potential threats fall into these categories," Relman said.

Respiratory viruses endanger entire populations. A single sneeze, cough or shout can spew billions of infectious viral particles into the air to lounge for hours before lodging in innocent passersby's airways, spreading from there to points unknown. All you have to do is walk into the wrong restaurant or office.

Respiratory virus transmission typically peaks in winter, when people congregate in closer quarters indoors.

Our immune systems, built over evolutionary time to fight off microbial pathogens, usually do better the second time around, assuming they survive the first pass.

That's where vaccines come in. Vaccination is a dress rehearsal for an infection. A classical vaccine displays, in a non-threatening way, one or more of a pathogen's defining biochemical features, or antigens, to various cells of the adaptive immune system, whose job is to carefully note and memorize particular antigens belonging to the pathogen of interest. When the real thing comes along, that memory will rouse those normally dormant immune cells to jump up, pump up and punch out that pest's lights -- preferably before it can invade any cells.

When antibody-producing immune cells called B cells sense a microbial invader's presence, they become prolific and productive. Each activated B cell produces large amounts of a distinctly shaped antigen-grabbing antibody, which clings more or less exclusively to a single antigenic section of the germ.

In their own way, germs have studied Darwin's law more carefully -- certainly for far longer -- than we have. They've learned to survive and thrive through trial and error. They are especially prone to mutation. This results in some bugs' antigens undergoing some nanoscale shape shifting, enabling them to shake off the antibodies B cells have dispatched to fight them off. Antibody-resistant microbes are free to proliferate, giving rise to new strains.

Influenza viruses and coronaviruses are particularly prone to mutation and consequent immune evasion. With all this shifting, there's typically more than one strain circulating at a time, forcing vaccinologists to guess which of these strains they should immunize against.

In the case of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, it took a mere 326 days from identification of gene sequence to the emergence of a vaccine, said Bali Pulendran, PhD, a professor of pathology and of microbiology and immunology and the Violetta L. Horton Professor. "But we were lucky: We already knew about SARS1 -- a somewhat related coronavirus that emerged in 2003 in Asia which, although highly lethal, was fortunately not highly contagious. And we knew about other coronaviruses. We may not be so lucky next time."

"It would be wonderful if you didn't have to be so granular in deciding what to cover," Relman said. "You wouldn't have to be as lucky or savvy or insightful."

With this in mind, Stanford Medicine researchers are coming up with more-inclusive vaccines designed to protect people from not just single viral strains but broad ranges of them, including some not yet encountered.

The best-known SARS-CoV-2 antigen is "Big Spike," aka the infamous spike protein, which pokes out of the viral particle's surface and is essential for locking onto and penetrating the target cell's outer membrane. The spike protein is very immunogenic -- visible to the immune system -- and antibodies targeting it can prevent SARS-CoV-2 from infecting a cell.

In real life, the virus's spike proteins come in threes. Peter Kim, PhD, the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor of Biochemistry, and his lab mates have shown that bunching up a lot of these spike-protein threesomes on the surface of a nanoparticle can make that nanoparticle look a lot more like a SARS-CoV-2 viral particle than scattered lone spike proteins do to antigen-presenting cells. These are immune cells that, on crossing paths with foreign objects such as viruses, suck them in, chew them up and display bits of their prey on their surfaces in a way that's ideal for enhancing the chances that other immune cells will notice and, among other things, fire up the production of antibodies targeting the appropriate microbial menace.

Kim's team also increased the spike protein's immunogenicity and stabilized it by, respectively, chopping off a chunk of it and making a couple of chemical substitutions in the molecule.

"The practice in the United States and elsewhere has been to chase each new SARS-CoV-2 variant by continually updating a vaccine to reflect whatever recent dominant strain happens to be trending," Kim said. "Our construct is the opposite. We're using spike proteins identical to the ones found on the surface of the original strain that emerged from China in late 2019. Yet this vaccine is effective against all the variants we've tested it against, including omicron."

It even worked against SARS1, Kim said.

"We're getting a very durable response in monkeys," he said. "Now we're going to see what happens in humans."

Coming Wednesday: Part 2: A Cure for the Flus?

Photo: Numstocker

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The hunt for a vaccine that fends off not just a single viral strain, but a multitude - Scope

January 08, 2024

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The percentage of girls and boys who initiated the HPV vaccine series before age 13 increased in recent years, according to study findings published in JAMA Pediatrics.

The percentage of those who completed the entire series by age 13 also increased but remained below 40%, researchers reported.

HPV vaccine hesitancy is higher among parents than for other vaccines, and the number of parents citing safety concerns as a reason not to vaccinate their children against the infection has climbed, research has shown.

The CDC recommends that children begin the HPV vaccine series at age 11 or 12 years but also says that it can be started as early as age 9 years, which researchers have said could improve coverage, as could reframing the shot as a cancer vaccine.

The authors of the new study noted that in recent years, uptake of the vaccine has been lower among younger adolescents, in spite of findings that receiving it at a younger age improves its vaccine efficacy.

Data on sex-specific trends in adolescent HPV vaccine initiation and series completion before age 13 years are limited; therefore, we aimed to assess these trends using clinician-verified data from the 2011 to 2021 National Immunization Survey-Teen, the authors wrote.

They examined 10 years worth of data from the survey, identifying adolescents who initiated HPV vaccination and completed the series before age 13 years as separate outcomes.

From 2011 to 2021, 220,806 adolescents completed their HPV vaccination series, with 51.1% of the patients being male. The authors found that the percentage of adolescents aged 13 to 17 years who initiated HPV vaccination and completed the series before age 13 years increased among both females and males.

From 2018 to 2021 in particular, the percentage of females initiating HPV vaccination before age 13 rose from 50.5% to 62.7%, and the percentage who completed the series before age 13 climbed from 34.2% to 38.6%. Among males, the increased were from 42.6% to 59% and 27.6% to 35.7%, respectively.

Although we noted increases in the percentages of adolescents who initiated HPV vaccination and completed the series before age 13 years, in 2021, most teens had not completed the series before age 13 years, the authors wrote. It is important to note that these findings may not reflect trends within other sociodemographic groups. Furthermore, a study limitation is that there were declining response rates over time, leading to potential nonresponse bias.

The researchers called the increases encouraging but added that more progress is needed and that barriers such as inconsistent national guidelines must be corrected.

Because earlier initiation of the HPV vaccine series is associated with higher rates of on-time series completion, we believe clinicians should consider recommending HPV vaccination as early as age 9 years, they wrote.

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Rates of HPV vaccination increase among young adolescents in US - Healio

The city health department said there were eight confirmed cases as of Monday.

January 8, 2024, 5:59 PM ET

5 min read

The Philadelphia Department of Health is tracking a measles outbreak in the city, with eight confirmed cases as of Monday.

Health officials told ABC News all confirmed cases are among non-immune individuals.

The health department said it's actively tracking current cases and has listed several known exposure sites across the city, mostly at health care facilities and a daycare.

The first known case was identified as a patient who was admitted to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in early December, where three other non-immune children were exposed and later tested positive for the virus, health officials said. At least three of the cases have resulted in hospitalization.

Health officials recommend anyone who thinks they may have been exposed to quarantine alone at home and stay away from other people.

Measles is one of the most contagious infectious diseases and can easily spread from one case to dozens of others in a contained area, said Dr. Indi Trehan, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Washington/Seattle Children's Hospital. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, measles virus particles can remain infectious for up to two hours once airborne.

After an initial flu-like illness, patients with measles can develop, ear infections, severe diarrhea, superimposed pneumonia, or brain infection and swelling. "It's a 'surface' disease, which means that all the major exposed surfaces of your body get broken down, like your respiratory tract, GI tract and eyes," Trehan said.

Measles infection can lead to blindness, weakness of the immune system and even rare neurologic symptoms years later in life. According to the Philadelphia Department of Health, one in five patients require hospitalization.

Individuals with measles should follow strict isolation measures, or risk spreading it to unvaccinated individuals. High-risk groups for serious illness include young children, the elderly, pregnant people and people with weakened immune systems.

The CDC recommends vaccination with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine at 12 to 15 months of age, and again at 4 to 6 years of age. There is no known treatment for measles besides supportive care and giving vitamin A to help reduce the risk of death. Experts do not recommend giving vitamin A to prevent measles.

The measles vaccine has prevented 56 million global deaths between 2000 and 2021, according to the World Health Organization. The United States declared measles an eliminated disease in 2000, but outbreaks have been increasing from unvaccinated individuals due to immigration, disrupted vaccine schedules from COVID-19 isolation regulations, and growing vaccine hesitancy since a debunked study falsely linked the MMR vaccine to autism.

The only way to prevent measles is to get the highly effective MMR vaccine, said Dr. Danielle Kerr, medical director for infection prevention at Seattle Children's Hospital.

"We have to hear families out and respect their concerns and fears, and provide them data-driven evidence and stories that illustrate why it's so important to be vaccinated," Kerr said. She recommended parents and caregivers use reputable sources to answer questions about the vaccine, such as the CDC or their pediatrician.

Trehan encouraged parents and caregivers who notice symptoms of measles in their child to call their local health care center ahead of time so the facility can prepare precautions. These symptoms include a high fever of around 103 to 105 degrees, copious congestion, red eyes, a rash that spreads head to toe and extreme irritability, according to the CDC.

"It's on all of us to protect each other as a society, as a human family," Trehan said.

Angela Y. Zhang, M.D. (she/hers), is a pediatric resident at the University of Washington/Seattle Children's Hospital and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.

Read more:

Philadelphia health officials are tracking a measles outbreak: What to know - ABC News