Check the vaccine

The department of health and family welfare introduced the pulse polio immunisation programme in 1995. Since then, many rounds of national and sub-national anti-polio days have been observed and numerous children aged up to five administered the oral polio vaccine (opv).

Rethink required

The Union ministry of health and family welfare needs to rethink its plan to introduce hepatitis b vaccination as part of the universal immunisation programme in the country. Does India really need it? For one, the vaccination protocol is faulty. Secondly, the real incidence of the disease is much lower than suggested.

Lives, and lets live

researchers have evolved a technology to manufacture vaccines that do not need to be refrigerated. The feat may enable additional vaccination of 10 million children every year, claim officials of the uk-based Cambridge Biostability, which will manufacture the vaccine in collaboration with Panacea Biotec, New Delhi.

Protection at last

california has become the second state in the us to ban the use of toxic mercury in vaccines. The state governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, signed a bill to that effect on September 28, 2004. According to the bill, children below the age of three and expectant mothers would not be given vaccines containing mercury -- a known neurotoxin. The law comes into effect from July 2, 2006.

Shot of hope

scientists have developed a malaria vaccine that shows some success in controlling the disease. Though it will have to be used in combination with available drugs and preventive methods to offer full protection, experts hope it would prove especially useful in malaria-endemic regions. The vaccine is still in the trial phase.

Shared interests

A mass immunisation programme for children in the developing world who contract easily-preventable diseases -- tetanus, measles, polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, hepatitis b, yellow fever and gastroenteritis -- is on the anvil. The governments of Britain and France and the founder of Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates, are backing this global healthcare project.

The wrong dose

Vaccines -- both oral and intravenous -- have been traditionally used against polio. Both are excellent preventives, each has its distinct advantages -- and drawbacks as well. However, it is quite well known that the Union government prefers the oral polio vaccine (opv) to the intravenous (ipv) one, instead of using both these to our advantage.

Unputdownable

Star-studded campaigns, millions spent and 20 new cases of polio to show for it. The reason being offered by Uttar Pradesh (up) is lack of adequate routine immunisation. The affected districts are Badaun, Moradabad, Muzaffarnagar, Mau and Bulandshahar. While it is a fact that routine immunisation in the state is only between 30-50 per cent, polio experts have to say that this should not be used as an excuse for up's inability to control polio. Under routine immunisation, the vaccine is given to a child at the age of one and a half month.

Sweet vaccine

decades of trade embargo by the us did not chip away the biomedical edge of Cuba. This fact was crystal clear recently when the country's scientists announced that they have developed a synthetic vaccine for meningitis -- a disease that kills more than 600,000 children annually in developing countries.

Error n' trial

The world's largest hiv vaccine trial in Thailand has turned out to be an expensive flop. The multi-million dollar trial involves tests on 16,000 Thai citizens and is the last hurdle before the vaccine can be registered and administered freely.