Bats can carry some of the deadliest diseases known to affect humans and yet they don’t seem to get sick. So what can we learn from a bat’s immune system?
Lynn Morris, University of the Witwatersrand; Nono Mkhize, National Institute for Communicable Diseases; Penny Moore, University of the Witwatersrand y Zanele Ditse, National Institute for Communicable Diseases
Two major clinical trials will be conducted in South Africa in 2016 to test ways of preventing new HIV infections.
Polio vaccinators carry boxes of polio vaccine drops as they head to the areas they have been appointed to administer the vaccine, in Karachi October 21 2014.
Akhtar Soomro/Reuters
Researchers are piloting a smartphone app to collect better information about who is getting vaccinated and to design better incentives for health workers on vaccination drives.
A woman receives an MMR injection.
Rebecca Naden/Reuters
Recent polio outbreaks in Ukraine and Mali, caused by a vaccine-derived form of poliovirus, don’t mean the vaccine isn’t working. On the contrary, they are a reminder to keep up vaccination rates.
‘Leaky vaccines’ don’t affect the ability of the virus to reproduce and spread to others; they simply prevent it from causing disease.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Europe District/Flickr
Hepatitis B vaccines have been available for over 20 years but the virus is still endemic in Africa, with the continent carrying over one third of the globe’s case load.
A vial of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and an information sheet are seen at Boston Children’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, February 26 2015.
Brian Snyder/Reuters
The anti-vaccination movement is not the cause of falling vaccination rates. It is a symptom of the public’s growing distrust in the government and the medical profession.
Children in particular experience a multitude of viral illnesses during their early years.
MIKI Yoshihito/Flickr
Viruses cause all kinds of infections from relatively mild cases of the flu to deadly outbreaks of Ebola. Clearly, not all viruses are equal and one of these differences is when you can infect others.
When the measles vaccine was introduced, it was associated with reductions in more childhood disease deaths than were actually caused by the measles. How does that work?
Saving lives one needle at a time.
Ahmed Jallanzo/EPA
During World War II the US military forged partnerships with industry and academia that translated laboratory findings into working products at an unprecedented pace.
Exposing people to weak forms of anti-science arguments can help them respond when they are hit by the real thing.
NIAID/Flickr
Understanding public opinion can help officials target messages during a health crisis. But current survey methods aren’t good at generating representative samples. Can Twitter fill in the gaps?
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand