Prospects for public health benefits in developing countries from new vaccines against enteric infections

Article Abstract:

The Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation with Developing Countries (SAREC) held a symposium recently at which new vaccines against enteric, or intestinal, diseases were reviewed to evaluate potential public health benefits. While most of the vaccines reviewed are safe, administered easily, and inexpensive, their overall efficacy, or ability to eradicate the target organism, is only about 60 percent. This spawned debate among the symposium participants in which it was pointed out that when vaccines are inexpensive and safe, even moderate levels of efficacy justifies their use, especially when effectiveness, or the reduction in rate of infection, is high. In developing countries, more than one billion individuals each year suffer from enteric infections such as diarrhea and more than five million of these people die each year, so a vaccine with even a 60 percent efficacy might prevent millions of deaths per year. A second issue is whether to wait for the availability of newer vaccines before beginning a mass-vaccination program. Again, currently available vaccines, if safe and effective, should be used for whatever benefit they may provide. Efficacy is different from effectiveness, which is a measure of a drug's value in lowering the rate of infection in a population. While efficacy is routinely measured, methods are needed by which to accurately measure effectiveness. Cost-benefit analysis programs are urgently needed as well, to account for all of the direct and indirect costs of using a particular vaccine. The input of social scientists should be regarded to ensure that new vaccines will be accepted by the people intended to benefit from them, and multinational companies must become interested in developing and testing vaccines for use in developing countries, independently of the potential use of the vaccines in industrialized nations. The symposium participants recommend that vaccines with even moderate efficacy be used when their effectiveness is likely to be significant and that the above areas be addressed in the further development and testing of vaccines for developing countries. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Health aspects, Conferences, meetings and seminars, Developing countries, Vaccines, Gastrointestinal diseases

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Resurgence of rabies: a historical perspective on rabies in children

Article Abstract:

The incidence of rabies in the U.S. may be increasing, but rabies may be prevented and successfully treated with prompt postexposure wound cleansing and vaccinations. Rabies has caused illness resulting in death throughout human history, and various medical treatments have been used, mostly without success. Wild animals have been a reservoir of the rabies virus, and domesticated animals have provided the transmission link from wildlife to humans. Louis Pasteur was the first person to develop an effective rabies vaccine. The human diploid cell vaccine with human RIG and the rabies vaccine adsorbed, both introduced in the 1980s, are much improved postexposure treatments. Rabies may be prevented by vaccinating domestic pets and by eliminating contact with live or dead wild animals.

History, Rabies

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