Category: Vaccine

Malaria is one of the greatest infectious killers in human history and, despite recent control efforts, an estimated 600,000 people still die from it each year. The recent approval of the RTS,S and R21 vaccines have reinvigorated hopes of eliminating malaria, but these vaccines are not perfect, and we will need more than one tool to defeat the disease.

Fortunately, other innovations are in the pipeline that could further bolster efforts to create a malaria-free world.

The scale-up and roll-out of vaccination campaigns involving the RTS,S and R21 vaccines will gain momentum in the coming months, but ongoing research is exploring the best dose and delivery strategy, particularly for the RTS,S vaccine.

"Some studies are planning to look at a way of using RTS,S with a reduced dose, which could make it even more cost-effective. There are also questions about how best to implement the schedules of immunisation, particularly in settings where malaria is highly seasonal, of which there are many in sub-Saharan Africa," said Dr Larry Slutsker, a consultant to PATH and former director of its Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases Program.

For instance, is it better in areas where malaria is highly seasonal to vaccinate children when they reach a certain age, or should we deliver the initial series in the months just before the high transmission season, or indeed use a hybrid approach that combines both approaches?

"There's also the question of whether you could mix doses of the two vaccines, so begin implementation with one vaccine and then switch to the other as you have access to it in real time," Slutsker said.

The RTS,S and R21 vaccines target the malaria parasite as it enters the human body and travels to the liver, before it infects liver cells and replicates inside them. But this strategy relies on clearing every parasite: "If one gets into the liver and you have no blood-stage immunity, you get malaria," said Prof Adrian Hill, chief investigator of the R21/Matrix-M programme and director of the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford.

However, vaccines targeting other stages of the parasite's lifecycle are being developed. These include blood-stage vaccines that target the parasite during its most destructive stage, when it undergoes further cycles of replication inside red blood cells, which is also when malaria symptoms occur.

Another approach is inducing antibodies to prevent parasites from maturing inside a mosquito after it has fed on an infected person. While such vaccines wouldn't necessarily prevent the vaccinated person from being infected, they could reduce the number of infections in a community.

Assuming they can be made to work, combining different types of malaria vaccines could further enhance their efficacy. For instance, if a child received the R21 or RTS,S vaccine plus a blood-stage vaccine, then any parasites that did manage to infect the liver could be mopped up as they tried to infect blood cells.

Currently the two approved vaccines only target the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, the deadliest cause of malaria that is mainly limited to sub-Saharan Africa. Vaccines are also being developed against Plasmodium vivax, the dominant malaria parasite in the rest of the world.

Monoclonal antibodies have transformed the way we prevent and treat various diseases, from cancer to childhood viral infections. They are lab-produced versions of the proteins that the body naturally uses to defend itself against disease, but these ones have been designed to attach to specific molecules, such as proteins found on the surface of the malaria parasites.

Injected into the body, such antibodies could provide potent protection against infection or transmission of malaria, but because they wouldn't train the immune system to remember what the parasite looks like, as conventional vaccines do, such protection would not be long-lasting.

Even so, they could be useful in situations where someone requires robust protection for a relatively short period, such as during pregnancy. Other examples could include if someone is recovering from another illness that puts them at high risk of death if they catch malaria, or for travellers to malaria-endemic countries.

No monoclonal antibodies have yet been approved for malaria prevention, but a recent clinical trial suggested that a single dose of an antibody that neutralises malaria parasites before they infect liver cells protected healthy, non-pregnant adults from infection during an intense six-month malaria season in Mali, Africa.

Malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes and most of the reduction in disease burden over the past two decades has been through the control of these vectors. Even with the new vaccines, bed nets will continue to provide the mainstay of protection over the near- to mid-, or even long-term.

These nets are now being tweaked and improved, Slutsker said. "All first-generation bed nets are based on pyrethroid insecticides, and there's now a substantial amount of pyrethroid resistance out there in some countries. So, now there are dual ingredient nets being deployed, which contain other insecticides, and look like they are achieving good impact in areas where there's a lot of pyrethroid resistance."

Insecticides are also being developed that could be sprayed on the walls of people's houses. In the research stage are new tools such as spatial repellents devices that emanate a compound that repels mosquitoes from the surrounding area and attractive targeted sugar bait (ATSB) devices that lure mosquitoes to feed on poison-laced sugar. "Mosquitoes need sugar meals as well as blood meals, and if they feed on the sugar and die, then the malaria parasite doesn't have enough time to mature in the mosquito and be passed on to people," said Slutsker.

Further ahead, so-called gene-drive mosquitoes could be a powerful tool in malaria elimination, if the public is willing to accept them. Various researchers are using the gene-editing technology CRISPR to introduce a modification that spreads through mosquito populations and makes female mosquitoes sterile. Also being investigated is whether infecting mosquitoes with a bacterium called Wolbachia could limit their ability to transmit malaria, by inhibiting the development of the malaria parasite within their bodies. Trials of both technologies are ongoing.

Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) have been a mainstay of malaria treatment over the past 20 years. They combine a derivative of artemisinin a drug isolated from the sweet wormwood plant, which swiftly reduces the number of Plasmodium parasites in people's blood with a partner drug that eliminates the remaining parasites.

The problem is that the parasites are increasingly developing resistance to these drugs. While alternatives are in development, researchers are also deploying molecular methods to better understand what types of resistance are circulating in populations and tailoring drug combinations to specific groups or individuals within that population.

"The idea is to overwhelm the parasite by having multiple first-line therapies that you rotate or switch between," said Slutsker. The theory is that when more than one drug is employed in a population at any given time, the emergence and spread of resistance may be delayed.

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Five innovations that could help to eliminate malaria - Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

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UVM finds COVID vaccine less effective for smokers, people with diabetes - Burlington Free Press

As a bill that would loosen West Virginias school vaccine requirements heads to the desk of Gov. Jim Justice, some medical professionals are urging him not to sign the legislation into law.

As it is now, state law requires school students to be vaccinated against a series of contagious diseases such as polio and measles, unless they have been granted an exemption due to a medical reason.

House Bill 5105 would allow the states 143 private or parochial schools to develop their own rules for vaccines.

https://westvirginiawatch.com/2024/03/12/medical-professionals-call-on-justice-to-veto-school-vaccine-bill/

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Medical professionals call on Justice to veto school vaccine bill - Beckley Register-Herald

Measles seems poised to make a comeback in America. Two adults and two children staying at a migrant shelter in Chicago have gotten sick with the disease. A sick kid in Sacramento, California, may have exposed hundreds of people to the virus at the hospital. Three other people were diagnosed in Michigan, along with seven from the same elementary school in Florida. As of Thursday, 17 states have reported cases to the CDC since the start of the year. (For comparison, that total was 19, plus the District of Columbia, for all of 2023, and just 6 for 2022.) Weve got this pile of firewood, Matthew Ferrari, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Penn State, told me, and the more outbreaks that keep happening, the more matches were throwing at it.

Whos holding the matchbook? Theres an easy answer to whos at fault. One of the nations political parties, and not the other, turned against vaccines to some extent during the pandemic, leading to voter disparities in death rates. One party, and not the other, has a presumptive presidential candidate who threatens to punish any school that infringes on parental rights by requiring immunizations. And one party, but not the other, appointed a vaccine-skeptical surgeon general in Florida who recently sidestepped standard public-health advice in the middle of an outbreak. The message from Republicans, as The Washington Posts Alexandra Petri joked in a recent column, can sound like this: We want measles in the schools and books out of them!

But the politics of vaccination, however grotesque it may be in 2024, obscures whats really going on. Its true that vaccine attitudes have become more polarized. Conservative parents in particular may be opting out of school vaccine requirements in higher numbers than they were before. In the blood-red state of Idaho, for example, more than 12 percent of kindergartners received exemptions from the rules for the 202223 school year, a staggering rate of refusal that is up by half from where it was just a few years ago. Politicized recalcitrance is unfortunate, to say the least, and it can be deadly. Even so, Americas political divides are simply not the cause of any recent measles outbreak. The virus has returned amid a swirl of global health inequities. Any foothold that it finds in the U.S. will be where hyperlocal social norms, not culture-war debates, are causing gaps in vaccine access and acceptance. The more this fact is overlooked, the more were all at risk.

Consider where the latest measles cases have been sprouting up: By and large, the recent outbreaks have been a blue-state phenomenon. (Idaho has so far been untouched; the same is true for Utah, with the nations third-highest school-vaccine-exemption rate.) Zoom into the county level, and youll find that the pattern is repeated: Measles isnt picking on Republican communities; if anything, it seems to be avoiding them. The recent outbreak in Florida unfolded not in a conservative area such as Sarasota, where vaccination coverage has been lagging, but rather in Biden-friendly Broward County, at a school where 97 percent of the students have received at least one MMR shot. Similarly, the recent cases in Michigan turned up not in any of the states MAGA-voting, vaccine-forgoing areas but among the diverse and relatively left-wing populations in and around Ann Arbor and Detroit.

Stepping back to look at the country as a whole, one cant even find a strong connectionor, really, any consistent link at allbetween U.S. measles outbreaks, year to year, and U.S. childrens vaccination rates. Sure, the past three years for which we have student-immunization data might seem to show a pattern: Starting in the fall of 2020, the average rate of MMR coverage for incoming kindergarteners did drop, if only by a little bit, from 93.9 to 93.1 percent; at the same time, the annual number of reported measles cases went up almost tenfold, from 13 to 121. But stretch that window back one more year, and the relationship appears to be reversed. In 2019, America was doing great in terms of measles vaccinationacross the country, 95.2 percent of kindergartners were getting immunized, according to the CDCand yet, in spite of this fantastic progress, measles cases were exploding. More than 1,200 Americans got sick with the disease that year, as measles took its greatest toll in a generation.

Its not that our high measles-vaccination coverage didnt matter then or that our slightly lower coverage doesnt matter now. Vaccination rates should be higher; this is always true. In the face of such a contagious disease, 95 percent would be good; 99 percent much better. When fewer people are protected, more people can get sick. In Matthew Ferraris terms, a dropping immunization rate means the piles of firewood are getting bigger. If and when the flames do ignite, they could end up reaching farther, and burning longer, than they would have just a year or two ago. In the midst of any outbreak large enough, where thousands are affected, children will die.

Read: The good news about vaccine hesitancy

Despite Americas fevered national conversation about vaccines, however, rates of uptake simply havent changed that much. Even with the recent divot in our national vaccine rates, the country remains in broad agreement on the value of immunity: 93 percent of Americas kindergartners are getting measles shots, a rate that has barely budged for decades. The sheer resilience of this norm should not be downplayed or ignored or, even worse, reimagined as a state of grace from which weve fallen. Our protection remains strong. In Florida, the surgeon generals lackadaisical response to the crisis at the Broward County elementary school did not produce a single extra case of the disease, in spite of grim predictions to the contrary, almost certainly thanks to how many kids are already vaccinated.

At the same time, however, measles has been thriving overseas. Its reemergence in America is not a function of the nations political divides, but of the diseases global prevalence. Europe had almost 60,000 cases last year, up from about 900 in 2022. The World Health Organization reports that the number of reported cases around the world surged to 306,000, after having dropped to a record low of 123,000 in 2021. As the pandemic has made apparent, our world is connected via pathogens: Large outbreaks in other countries, where vaccination coverage may be low, have a tendency to seed tiny outbreaks in the U.S., where coverage has been pretty high, but narrow and persistent cracks in our defenses still remain. (In 2022, more than half of the world's unvaccinated infants were concentrated in just 10 countries; some of these are measles hotspots at this moment.) This also helps explain why so many Americans got measles in 2019. That was a catastrophic year for measles around the world, with 873,000 reported cases in total, the most since 1994. We had pretty good protection then, but the virus was everywhereand so, the virus was here.

Read: Floridas experiment with measles

In high-income countries such as the U.S., Ferrari told me, clustering of risk tends to be the source of measles outbreaks more than minor changes in vaccine coverage overall. Even in 2019, when more than 95 percent of American kindergarteners were getting immunized, we still had pockets of exposure where protection happened to be weakest. By far the biggest outbreak from that year occurred among Hasidic Jewish populations in New York State. Measles was imported via Israel from the hot spot of Ukraine, and took off within a group whose vaccination rates were much, much lower than their neighbors. In the end, more than 1,100 people were infected during that outbreak, which began in October 2018 and lasted for nearly a year. A national vaccination rate has one kind of meaning, but all outbreaks are local outbreaks, Noel Brewer, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a member of the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, told me. They happen on a specific street in a specific group of houses, where a group of people live and interact with each other. And those rates of vaccination in that specific place can drop well below the rate of coverage that will forestall an outbreak.

Weve seen this time and time again over the past decade. When bigger outbreaks do occur in the U.S., they tend to happen in tight-knit communities, where immunization norms are radically out of sync with those of the rest of American society, politics aside. In 2014, when an outbreak of nearly 400 cases took hold in Ohio, almost entirely within the Amish community, the local vaccination rate was estimated to be about 14 percent. (The statewide number for young children at that time was more than 95 percent.) In 2011 and 2017, measles broke out among the large Somali American community in Minnesota, where anti-vaccine messaging has been intense, and where immunization rates for 2-year-olds dropped from 92 percent 20 years ago to 35 percent in 2021. An outbreak from the end of 2022, affecting 85 people in and around Columbus, Ohio, may well be linked to the nations second-biggest community of Somalis.

Care must be taken in how these outbreaks are discussed. In Minnesota, for example, state health officials have avoided calling out the Somali community, for fear of stigmatizing. But another sort of trouble may arise when Americans overlook exactly whos at risk, and exactly why. Experts broadly agree that the most effective way to deal with local outbreaks is with local interventions. Brewer pointed out that during the 2019 outbreak in New York, for example, nurses who belonged to local Jewish congregations took on the role of vaccine advocates. In Minnesota, the Department of Health has brought on more Somali staff, who coordinate with local Somali radio and TV stations to share its message. Yet these efforts can be obscured by news coverage of the crisis that points to a growing anti-science movement and parents giving up on vaccination all across the land. When measles spread among New Yorks orthodox Jews, The New York Times reported on an anti-vaccine fervor on the left that is increasingly worrying health authorities. When the virus hit Columbus, NBC News noted that it was happening as resistance to school vaccination requirements is spreading across the country.

Two different public-health responses can be undertaken in concert, the experts told me: You treat the problem at its source, and you also take the chance to highlight broader trends. A spate of measles cases in one community becomes an opportunity for pushing vaccination everywhere. Thats always an important thing for us to do, Ferrari said. Even so, the impulse to nationalize the problem will have its own, infelicitous effects. First, its meaningfully misleading. By catastrophizing subtle shifts in vaccination rates, we frighten many parents for no reason. By insisting that every tiny outbreak is a product of our national politics, we distract attention from the smaller measures that can and should be takenwell ahead of any upsurge of diseaseto address hyperlocal vaccination crises. And by exaggerating the scale of our divisionsby asserting that weve seen a dangerous shift on a massive scale, or an anti-vaccine takeover of the Republican Partywe may end up worsening the very problem that worries us the most.

We are a highly vaccinated nation, our politics notwithstanding. Telling people otherwise only fosters more division; it feeds the feeling that taking or refusing measles shots is an important mode of self-expression. It further polarizes health behavior, which can only widen the cracks in our defenses. We have become quite militant and moralistic about vaccination, Brewer told me, and we probably would do well to be less absolute. Measles outbreaks overseas are growing; measles outbreaks here will follow. Their specific causes ought not be ignored.

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The Return of Measles - The Atlantic

There's an unexpected benefit when you get the flu shot past flu vaccines have protected against four COVID strains, but this year's will only protect against three.

UW Health's Dr. Jeff Pothof joined TMJ4 at Noon to explain why.

He also talked about an increased number of kids taking melatonin to sleep and ending up in the ER. Dr. Pothof explains what you can do to keep your family safe.

Plus, Dr. Pothof explains what you need to know about lead exposure and a recent cinnamon recall by the FDA.

You can watch the full interview above.

Its about time to watch on your time. Stream local news and weather 24/7 by searching for TMJ4 on your device.

Available for download on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and more.

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UW Health's Dr. Jeff Pothof talks about COVID and flu vaccine protection - TMJ4 News

Popular on Rolling Stone

Neil Young is placing his music back on Spotify a little over two years after pulling it due to misinformation about vaccines on The Joe Rogan Experience. The streaming platform used to be the exclusive home of Rogan, but they recently inked a $250 million deal with the podcaster that will make the show available on other platforms.

My decision comes as other music services, Apple, Amazon, Qobuz, Tidal, all high res, have started serving the same disinformation podcast I had opposed at Spotify, Young wrote to fans on The Neil Young Archives. Because I cannot leave all those services like I did Spotify, because my music would have no streaming outlet to music lovers at all, I have returned.

This doesnt mean Young is happy with Spotify. His letter repeatedly hammers them for continuing to use low resolution audio files. [I have] sincere hopes that Spotify sound quality will improve and people will be able to hear and feel all the music as we made it, he wrote. Hopefully Spotify will return to Hi Res as the answer and serve all the music to everyone. Spotify, you can do it! Really be #1 in all ways. You have the music and the listeners!!! Start with a limited hi res tier and build from there!

Young originally pulled his music from Spotify in January 2022. I am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines, he wrote, potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them.

In response, Rogan said that he was a longtime fan of Neil Young, and had no desire to hurt anybody despite repeatedly questioning the safety and effectiveness of Covid vaccines to his massive audience. Im not trying to promote misinformation, he said at the time. Im not trying to be controversial. Ive never tried to do anything with this podcast other than to just talk to people I do not know if theyre right. I dont know because Im not a doctor; Im not a scientist. Im just a person who sits down and talks to people and has conversations with them.

At press time, Youngs music had not reappeared back on Spotify.

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Neil Young Is Returning to Spotify Two Years After Leaving Over Joe Rogans Vaccine Comments - Rolling Stone

But elsewhere, efforts to enhance vaccine manufacturing capability pale in comparison, especially in the UK.

When you look, scratch beneath the surface, it is nothing, Clive Dix, the former head of the Covid vaccine taskforce, told the Telegraph. In the whole environment for manufacturing, the UK is a bit of a hostile place for it to occur. So people have moved away.

Like Mr Poonawalla, Dr Dix said a lack of political interest is a major barrier to the UK upping its manufacturing capabilities.

Experts have pointed to the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre to highlight this issue.

It was launched during the pandemic as a not-for-profit company that would combine research and manufacturing under one roof. But in 2022, the 200m government-funded centre was sold to a private pharmaceutical company.

Dr Dix added that more incentives are needed to bring vaccine research and manufacturing to the UK, like the tax breaks recently introduced in Ireland. Otherwise, Britain will be left wholly reliant on other countries in the case of a new pandemic.

Weve actually lost a lot of our manufacturing [to other countries], partly because big companies look up the cost base for doing it, he says. A lot has gone to India and China Weve just let it slip through our fingers because of the cost base that we have.

Across the Channel, Europe which found itself in hot competition with the UK and US for supplies during the coronavirus pandemic appears to be much more proactive. In June 2023, the European Union signed contracts with four vaccine producers to reserve manufacturing capacity in the case of future outbreaks.

At the cost of 160 million per year, the deals with the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Spanish vaccine makers HIPRA and CZ vaccines, and Dutch company Bilthoven Biologicals covers enough capacity for 325 million doses annually. It includes a range of vaccine types, including mRNA, viral vector and protein-based shots.

Dr Dix believes it is not too late to bring the ailing political will back and replicate Europes efforts.

I think you could easily resurrect it with the right leadership and make it happen, he says.

Back in Pune, Mr Poonawalla stressed that investing in a diverse portfolio of manufacturers in different geographical regions will be critical if leaders worldwide want to avoid the supply-chain issues that plagued Covid-19 jabs.

If you dont have a ready-made facility available, were just going to be exactly in the same situation where we were dependent on four or five manufacturers in the world, he says.

Every country is going to scramble for it, youre going to have all these bans and restrictions, raw material restrictions, regulatory restrictions that delayed and confused and created havoc during the pandemic.

The SII was not immune to havoc. As India was engulfed by Covid-19 which has killed at least 770,000 people in the vast country the government banned vaccine exports.

At the time, SII had exported just 60 million of its doses, which were predominantly intended for low income countries unable to secure shots from elsewhere. AstraZeneca, which SSI struck a deal with to produce a billion doses of its shot, served a legal notice over delivery delays.

The delivery of vaccinations worldwide was splintered, with wealthy nations first in line to protect their people and poorer nations left behind.

Next time around, Mr Poonawalla said SII will be committed to guaranteeing the same thing doesnt happen, and that costs will be kept low to ensure the most vulnerable get the shot.

At SII, we firmly believe that no one should be left behind in the fight against global health emergencies, he said.

Our commitment to equity, coupled with our ongoing efforts to enhance manufacturing capabilities, forge strategic partnerships, and align with international initiatives, positions us to a timely and fair distribution of life-saving vaccines to those in need, both in India and around the world, during the next pandemic.

SIIs has also faced opposition from the US drug lobby for its calls to reform intellectual property protections, while regulations have made it hard for the company to break through in wealthy markets.

More broadly, Indias pharmaceutical industry is facing major scrutiny. It has been plagued by scandals, including a deadly cough syrup that killed hundreds of children, though SII has stressed that it was not involved.

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What Britain can learn from India's 'Vaccine Prince' - The Telegraph

The court found that 20th Television may have engaged in religious discrimination against the actor, who was denied an exemption from the vaccine.

Rockmond Dunbar in 911.

20th Television must face a religious discrimination trial for firing Rockmond Dunbar, an original castmember on 911, after he refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine, marking the second ruling to clear the way for trial a lawsuit against a studio over terminations triggered by vaccine mandates amid the pandemic.

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee found on Friday that 20th may have discriminated against Dunbar for declining to provide him a religious exemption to the vaccine as a follower of the Church of Universal Wisdom. The trial will assess whether he had a sincerely held religious belief within the meaning of civil rights laws that conflicted with the vaccine mandate and if reasonable accommodations could have been offered, allowing him to continue acting on the series without endangering others or causing undue hardship to the studio.

If 20th is found to have engaged in religious discrimination in the trial, the decision could threaten how studios approach exemptions to vaccine mandates if they are reimplemented in the future. Dunbar claimed that his request for an exemption was denied after Disney determined that he was not a true believer in the Church of Universal Wisdom. An exemption request from General Hospitals Ingo Rademacher, who was fired from the series after refusing the vaccine, was similarly rejected after Disney, which owns ABC, questioned the sincerity of his belief in a book called The Revelation of Ramala. It appears that Disney vetted exemption applications on a case-by-case basis, investigating whether the religions constituted true religious institutions and whether applicants actually followed the beliefs.

Fridays ruling comes on the heels of a Los Angeles judge concluding in February that ABC may have engaged in religious discrimination against two former General Hospital crewmembers, who sued the network after they were fired for refusing the vaccine. In that case, the court will similarly evaluate whether James and Timothy Wahl had religious beliefs that ABC should have accommodated by affording them exemptions and offering them certain workarounds to mandatory vaccination policies.

In 2022, Dunbar sued 20th and Disney, which owns the TV production arm of 20th Century Studios and has been dismissed from the case, after he was fired for refusing to comply with vaccine mandates. The return-to-work protocols, which were agreed upon by Hollywoods guilds and studios, stated that vaccines could be required for those working in Zone A of a production typically a projects main actors, as well as key crewmembers who work closely with them in the highest-risk areas of the set.

In response to an alleged violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination on the basis of race, religion and sex, among other things, 20th contested the sincerity of Dunbars beliefs. It stressed that he had repeatedly taken actions contradicting tenets of the Church of Universal Wisdom by undergoing certain medical procedures less than a year before refusing the vaccine.

Dunbar answered by claiming that he communed with God, who allegedly made exceptions and permitted [him] to act differently, he attested to the court. According to the actor, he was also told that the COVID-19 vaccine was made from evil and that it will compromise [his] spirit and that it was not for [him].

The court expressed skepticism at the assertions, explaining that communing with God is not a blanket privilege that undermines our system of ordered liberty. She also noted that Dunbars original request for an exemption only mentioned unspecified medical issues, not any sort of religious objection.

In a similar lawsuit against the San Diego Unified School District that went up to a federal appeals court, it was found that a request for an exemption could be denied on the grounds that the employees belief is not sincerely held or that such an exemption would pose an undue hardship by burdening the employer through the increased risk of spreading COVID-19 to others.

Still, Gee stressed that the Supreme Court has observed that the determination of what is a religious belief is more often than not a difficult and delicate task.

And so it is here, the judge wrote. Defendants identify evidence that seems to undermine the sincerity of Dunbars religious beliefs, but Dunbar has also presented evidence that suggests under a lower than preponderance burden that his beliefs are strongly held and genuine nonetheless.

Under Title VII, employers must provide a reasonable accommodation as long as it does not cause undue hardship, which federal courts have found to include the increased risk of COVID-19 exposure and transmission. In the trial, jurors will determine whether 20th could have provided Dunbar a workaround to getting the vaccine without endangering others.

On this issue, the court emphasized that the return-to-work agreement barred unvaccinated actors from being on set with minors under the age of 12 and others for whom the vaccine was not yet available. In September 2021, the 911 cast included three minors, one of whom played Dunbars child on the series.

The remainder of Dunbars claims for race discrimination, retaliation and breach of contract, among others, were dismissed.

There is no credible dispute that Defendants offered a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for finding Dunbar in breach of the Agreement and terminating him his non-compliance with the mandatory vaccine policy is a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason, the order stated about the race discrimination claim.

Dunbar, who had over $1.3 million in his contract left to be paid out, will also not be able to pursue punitive damages in the absence of evidence that anyone acted with malice or recklessness in denying him a religious exemption.

20th and Disney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last month, a Los Angeles judge ruled against ABC on summary judgment and allowed a religious discrimination claim under the Fair Employment and Housing Act to go to trial against the network. The court suggested that accommodations could have been provided to General Hospital crewmembers, who sought and were denied religious exemptions, by allowing them to follow safety protocols that were in effect from July 2020 to the fall of 2021, before vaccine mandates were instituted. During this time, the production did not have an outbreak of the virus, lawyers for the crewmembers claimed.

The ruling was issued on the heels of ABC defeating a similar lawsuit from Ingo Rademacher over his dismissal from General Hospital for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Unlike with crewmembers who were not in close, unmasked contact with others, the court found in that case that it was impossible for unvaccinated actors to safely work on set during the pandemic due to the nature of their work.

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911 Actors Lawsuit Over COVID Vaccine Firing Heads to Trial in Major Test for Studios - Hollywood Reporter

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The world's biggest vaccine maker will start rolling out a cheap new malaria inoculation in Africa from May, bolstering the fight against one of the most deadly infectious diseases globally.

The mosquito-borne malady kills more than 600,000 people a year, 95 percent of them in Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

It is more fatal among the young, and the annual toll of malaria deaths includes nearly half a million African children aged under five.

The Serum Institute of India (SII) this year plans to ship 25 million doses of the new vaccine, developed along with Oxford University researchers and known as R21.

"In terms of importance and saving lives... it's going to be a hugely impactful vaccine, SII chief executive Adar Poonawalla told AFP.

"We've offered these vaccines to the African continent at $4 or less in the first year itself. And then as we scale up, maybe we can bring that down a little bit further."

The R21 vaccine, a three-dose course and booster shot for children aged 5-36 months, is the second malaria shot approved by the WHO.

But researchers say it will be cheaper than the other vaccine produced by British pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline.

The WHO said its rollout was expected to greatly expand supply to meet high demand from African countries.

The SII has been the largest vaccine manufacturer globally for several years but saw its profile rise substantially after manufacturing millions of cheap COVID vaccine shots for export at the height of the pandemic.

With demand for coronavirus prevention waning, it has repurposed some pandemic-era facilities to combat other diseases at its sprawling factory complex in Pune, a few hours' drive from business capital Mumbai.

Small glass vials are pumped with R21 doses and whizzed off on a conveyor belt for quality checks and packaging ahead of their looming export.

Poonawalla says the institute's goal is to roll out R21 in a few countries before the main malaria season starts in about six to seven months.

"Ideally we should have vaccinated the people most vulnerable at risk. That's the target," he said, adding that production would eventually reach 100 million R21 doses per year.

SII research and development director Umesh Shaligram said the vaccines would be shipped towards the end of April with deployment to start by May and June.

The vaccines will mostly be bought and distributed through the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Gavi, a global vaccine alliance.

Chad, Central African Republic, DR Congo, Mozambique and South Sudan will be the first five countries to receive R21 doses, a UNICEF spokesperson told AFP.

"Uganda and Nigeria are planning to introduce it later in the year," the spokesperson added.

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Cut-price malaria vaccine to begin Africa rollout from May - Medical Xpress

The study, titled 'Immunogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines BBV152 (COVAXIN) and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (COVISHIELD) in seronegative and seropositive individuals in India: a multicentre, non-randomized observational study', compared the immune responses in users for Covishield v Covaxin, it added.

The study involved collaboration between 11 institutes, including at least six from Pune. These six included the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune (IISER), the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), the National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), and the Pune Knowledge Cluster.

Covishield was AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine produced and branded locally by the Adar Poonawalla-led Serum Institute of India (SII) in Pune, while Covaxin was developed and produced by the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech.

1. Covishield's Robust Immune Responses: The comprehensive study, conducted from June 2021 to January 2022 and encompassing 691 participants aged 18 to 45 from Bangalore and Pune, found that Covishield, which employs a virus vector for spike protein delivery, consistently showed more robust immune responses than Covaxin, an inactivated virus vaccine.

2. Differential Immune Responses: The majority of participants exhibited a near-complete immune response to Covishield, while the response to Covaxin varied, particularly among those vaccinated before the emergence of the Omicron variant.

3. Antibody Levels and T Cells: Covishield induced higher antibody levels in both seronegative (individuals without prior exposure) and seropositive (individuals with prior exposure) subjects, suggesting a more potent and enduring immune response. Additionally, Covishield triggered a higher number of T cells compared to Covaxin, indicating a stronger overall immune response.

4. Protection Against Variants: Covishield consistently demonstrated higher antibody levels against various virus strains, suggesting its potential superior protection against variants such as Omicron.

Follow-up studies on vaccine immunology and the analysis of immune protection factors were lacking and theres a scarcity of comparative studies on these two vaccines. This is one of the very few studies that not only investigates the immune responses of participants after vaccination but also considers their immune history prior to vaccination," said Dr Mangaiarkarasi Asokan, former programme head, of VISION, and lead author of the study.

"While there was a whole lot of talk going on about which vaccine performed better against the COVID-19 virus, for us in India, only two vaccines were available and the majority of citizens were vaccinated in a phase-wise manner," said Vineeta Bal, emeritus professor, Biology, IISER Pune on the overall significance of this research.

She added that before this study, there was no comparison data available about the performance and effectiveness of these vaccines. "Some people only had data on Covaxin while others had data on Covishield. For the first time, this study has given us the comparative data for both vaccines," she added.

Bal also added that they pioneered technology to conduct this study, which will "now be helpful for immunology assessment in future".

Professor LS Shashidhara, centre director, NCBS, called it a "first-of-its-kind population-level immunological study on vaccines" and noted that it is significant as the virus is "still spreading and evolving".

"Such studies need serum samples from diverse subjects representing genetic, geoclimatic and nutritional diversity and innovative study design and rigorous statistical methods. No one single organisation can undertake such a study. We are grateful to all our partners and indebted to Hindustan Unilever for its generous funding. Results of this study so far and additional research that we are pursuing will have major inputs for future vaccine strategies as a public health programme," he added.

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Published: 08 Mar 2024, 07:24 AM IST

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COVID-19 Vaccine: Study shows Covishield outperforms Covaxin. Key things to know - Mint