67,042 research outputs found

    Edible Vaccines: Trigger of Bodyā€™s First Line Defense

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    Vaccines are used as protective agents from various diseases. The major reason to prepare vaccines are to digest the macromolecule of proteins in stomach considering of high pH . To overcome this issue a scientist named Arntzen developed the theory of edible vaccines. EVs are developed by genetic technology; in this the genes are introduced directly to the plants in various methods. The developed plant contains coded protein which acts as a vaccine. Purchasing at low cost leads to the prevention of various diseases like malaria, measles, hepatitis B , cholera, HIV and anthrax     Keywords: Edible vaccines, Antigens, Oral immunization, Immunity

    The value of preventing malaria in Tembien, Ethiopia

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    The authors measure the monetary value households place on preventing malaria in Tembien, Tigray Region, Ethiopia. They estimate a household demand function for a hypothetical malaria vaccine and compute the value of preventing malaria as the household's maximum willingness to pay to provide vaccines for all family members. They contrast willingness to pay with the traditional costs of illness (medical costs and time lost because of malaria). Their results indicate that the value of preventing malaria with vaccines is about US36ahouseholdayear,orabout15percentofimputedannualhouseholdincome.Thisis,onaverage,abouttwoorthreetimestheexpectedhouseholdcostofillness.Despitethegreatbenefitsfrompreventingmalaria,thefactthatvaccinedemandispriceinelasticsuggeststhatitwillbedifficulttoachievesignificantmarketpenetrationunlessthevaccineissubsidized.Theauthorsobtainsimilarresultsforinsecticideāˆ’treatedbednets.Theirestimatesofhouseholddemandfunctionsforbednetssuggestthatatapricethatmightpermitcostrecovery(US36 a household a year, or about 15 percent of imputed annual household income. This is, on average, about two or three times the expected household cost of illness. Despite the great benefits from preventing malaria, the fact that vaccine demand is price inelastic suggests that it will be difficult to achieve significant market penetration unless the vaccine is subsidized. The authors obtain similar results for insecticide-treated bed nets. Their estimates of household demand functions for bed nets suggest that at a price that might permit cost recovery (US6 a bed net), only a third of the population of a 200-person village would sleep under bed nets.Early Child and Children's Health,Public Health Promotion,Disease Control&Prevention,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Economic Theory&Research,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Economic Theory&Research,Climate Change,Environmental Economics&Policies,Early Child and Children's Health

    Anatomy of a Health Scare: Education, Income and the MMR Controversy in the UK

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    One theory for why there is a strong education gradient in health outcomes is that more educated individuals more quickly absorb new information about health technology. The MMR controversy in the UK provides a case where, for a brief period of time, some highly publicized research suggested that a particular multi-component vaccine, freely provided to young children, could have potentially serious side-effects. As the controversy set in, uptake of the MMR vaccine by more educated parents decreased significantly faster than that by less educated parents, turning a significant positive education gradient into a negative one. The fact that the initial information was subsequently overturned and the decline in uptake ceased suggests that our results are not driven by other unrelated trends. Somewhat puzzling, more educated parents also reduced their uptake of other non-controversial childhood vaccines. As an alternative to the MMR, parents may purchase single vaccines privately; the MMR is the only vaccine for which we observe a strong effect of income on uptake.childhood vaccinations, health outcomes, education

    Taking stock and looking ahead: Behavioural science lessons for implementing the nonavalent human papillomavirus vaccine

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    The development and licensing of a nonavalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine has the potential to reduce morbidity and mortality from HPV-related cancers beyond that of first generation HPV vaccines. However, this benefit can only be realised if the offer of vaccination is accepted. Uptake of first generation HPV vaccines is not complete and shows huge global variation. In addition to practical and financial challenges to optimising coverage, behavioural issues explain a large proportion of the variance in vaccine receipt. This commentary draws on the findings of over a decade of behavioural science research seeking to understand uptake of first generation HPV vaccines, in order to anticipate challenges to implement the nonavalent HPV vaccine. Challenges include distrust of combination vaccines, uncertainty about long-term efficacy, distrust of a new and (perceived to be) untested vaccine, cost and uncertainty regarding interchanging doses of first generation and nonavalent vaccines and the appropriateness of revaccination. We use behavioural science theory and existing evaluations of interventions to increase uptake of vaccines to identify evidence-based approaches that can be implemented by vaccine stakeholders to address parents' concerns and maximise uptake of the nonavalent HPV vaccine

    Influences of Nationality and National Identification on Perceived Dangerousness of COVID-19 Variants and Perceived Effectiveness of COVID-19 Vaccines:A Study of UK and Portuguese Samples

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    During the COVID-19 pandemic, both variants of the virus that causes the disease and vaccines developed to combat it have been identified with nationalities. Both social identity theory and identity process theory would predict that this would initiate intergroup differentiation processes aimed at optimizing ingroup value and personal identity enhancement. Our study examined whether peopleā€™s nationality and level of national identification influence their perception of dangerousness of variants and effectiveness of vaccines. We compared data collected by online survey in March 2021 from the UK (which was associated with both a variant and a vaccine) and Portugal (which was associated with neither). The Portuguese rated variants overall as more dangerous than did the UK sample. The Chinese variant was rated by both samples as the least dangerous and the UK sample rated the British variant as less dangerous than did the Portuguese. Higher national identification in the UK sample was associated with differentiating more between the British variant and the South African variant and differentiating it less from the Chinese variant. The UK sample rated the effectiveness of the British vaccine higher than did the Portuguese. They also evaluated it as more effective than the American, Chinese and Indian vaccines. In both samples, higher national identification was associated with lower ratings of effectiveness for vaccines originating in China or India. Our study suggests that identity processes associated with national identification do influence perceptions of vaccines and variants. This has significant practice and policy implications. Social representations of variants and vaccines in nationalistic terms can have complex and unexpected consequences

    The Promise of Anti-Idiotype Revisited

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    The promise of idiotype-based therapeutics has been disappointing forcing a new look at the concept and its potential to generate an effective approach for immunotherapy. Here, the idiotype network theory is revisited with regard to the development of efficacious anti-idiotype vaccines. The experience of polyclonal anti-Idiotype reagents in animal models as well as an understanding of the immune response in humans lends to the proposition that polyclonal anti-Idiotype vaccines will be more effective compared to monoclonal-based anti-Idiotype vaccines. This novel strategy can be adapted in Biotech-standard production of therapeutic antibodies

    The Effectiveness of California Assembly Bill 2109: Personal Belief Exemptions for Kindergarten Immunizations

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    The numbers of vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs) in the United States has declined with the development, administration, and effectiveness of vaccines during the 1970s and 1980s. As the eminent threat of VPDs to the public began to wane, parents started questioning the safety and necessity of vaccines. When parents were given the option of selecting personal belief exemption (PBE) waivers for state mandated immunizations for their incoming kindergarten children, an increase in PBEs and the number of VPD outbreaks began to occur. To counter the growing trend of PBEs, and to prevent outbreaks of VPDs in school settings and communities, California Assembly Bill2109 (AB 2109, 2012) was created to help educate parents about vaccine safety and VPDs. As of January 2014, California Assembly Bill2109 (AB 2109, 2012) mandated that parents seeking PBEs for state mandated immunizations for students entering kindergarten were required to receive education about vaccine safety and risks along with education regarding VPDs by a health care professional (AB 2109, 2012). The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of AB 21 09 by examining data from the top ten most populous counties in California. Data was collected for the 2013-2014, 2014-2015, and 2015- 2016 school years to determine if AB 2109 directly impacted the number of PBEs for incoming kindergartners. This project determined that AB 2109 was significant in decreasing the number 3 of PBEs from the 2013-2014,2014-2015, and 2015-2016 school years by -23.4% in the ten most populous counties in California. Further research beyond this project is necessary to evaluate the continued impact of AB 2109 on PBEs and in decreasing the number of VPD outbreaks throughout California

    Vaccine innovation, translational research and the management of knowledge accumulation

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    What does it take to translate research into socially beneficial technologies like vaccines? Current policy that focuses on expanding research or strengthening incentives overlooks how the supply and demand of innovation is mediated by problem-solving processes that generate knowledge which is often fragmented and only locally valid. This paper details some of the conditions that allow fragmented, local knowledge to accumulate through a series of structured steps from the artificial simplicity of the laboratory to the complexity of real world application. Poliomyelitis is used as an illustrative case to highlight the importance of experimental animal models and the extent of co-ordination that can be required if they are missing. Implications for the governance and management of current attempts to produce vaccines for HIV, TB and Malaria are discussed. Article Outlin

    Improvement of antitumor therapies based on vaccines and immune-checkpoint inhibitors by counteracting tumor-immunostimulationw

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    Immune-checkpoint inhibitors and antitumor vaccines may produce both tumor-inhibitory and tumor-stimulatory effects on growing tumors depending on the stage of tumor growth at which treatment is initiated. These paradoxical results are not necessarily incompatible with current tumor immunology but they might better be explained assuming the involvement of the phenomenon of tumor immunostimulation. This phenomenon was originally postulated on the basis that the immune response (IR) evoked in Winn tests by strong chemical murine tumors was not linear but biphasic, with strong IR producing inhibition and weak IR inducing stimulation of tumor growth. Herein, we extended those former observations to weak spontaneous murine tumors growing in pre-immunized, immune-competent and immune-depressed mice. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the interaction of specifical T cells and target tumor cells at low stimulatory ratios enhanced the production of chemokines aimed to recruit macrophages at the tumor site, which, upon activation of toll-like receptor 4 and p38 signaling pathways, would recruit and activate more macrophages and other inflammatory cells which would produce growth-stimulating signals leading to an accelerated tumor growth. On this basis, the paradoxical effects achieved by immunological therapies on growing tumors could be explained depending upon where the therapy-induced IR stands on the biphasic IR curve at each stage of tumor growth. At stages where tumor growth was enhanced (medium and large-sized tumors), counteraction of the tumor-immunostimulatory effect with anti-inflammatory strategies or, more efficiently, with selective inhibitors of p38 signaling pathways enabled the otherwise tumor-promoting immunological strategies to produce significant inhibition of tumor growth.Fil: Chiarella, Paula. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Vermeulen, MĆ³nica. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Montagna, Daniela R.. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Vallecorsa, Pablo. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Strazza, Ariel Ramiro. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Meiss, Roberto P.. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Bustuoabad, Oscar D.. Retired; ArgentinaFil: Ruggiero, RaĆŗl A.. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Prehn, Richmond T.. University Of Washington, Seattle
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