We’re reliant on overseas supply - and the many moving parts of delivery. Each of those parts require staff on the ground – and many workers in this system are likely being affected by Omicron.
mRNA vaccines: not just for COVID.
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Instead of assuming that science skeptics are motivated by ignorance, or selfishness, we should listen to them and try to understand and address their actual concerns.
Through lockdowns, vaccine mandates and the spectre of mass death, the pandemic has uprooted our lives and challenged us to think differently about ethics. What might the future hold?
COVID-19 vaccines and treatments aren’t societal silver bullets when health disparities persist.
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Vaccines and medical treatments can only go so far in an unequal society. Facing the ongoing history of racial discrimination and bias in the US would help end the pandemic.
With the holiday season approaching, people wait to receive a COVID-19 vaccination in Montréal as the pandemic continues in Canada and around the world.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
We have moved beyond burning witches and lynching wrong-doers. So we should also stop shaming unvaccinated people. There are better ways to change behaviour.
Understanding how much protection a vaccine offers is not as simple as it sounds.
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For a number of reasons, as time goes on vaccines become less effective. So how do researchers calculate how well vaccines are working?
Health care providers are just one trusted source of information for parents on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for children.
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Pediatricians and other health care providers can take some concrete steps toward building trust and counteracting anti-vaccination misinformation.
A young girl receives a COVID-19 vaccine during the second day of vaccination for children aged five to 11 years old in Montréal in November 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson
Conversations and debates about vaccine mandates will continue well into next year as policy-makers balance individual freedom and public well-being.
While people in the wealthy West have had preferred access to multiple rounds of vaccines, vast numbers of people, especially in Africa and on the Indian subcontinent, haven’t received a single dose.
(Pixabay/Canva)
In places with low vaccination rates, COVID-19 has the chance to linger, and variants develop and travel. Without global vaccine equity, this entirely predictable pattern will repeat itself.
Vaccine hesitancy poses significant risks for those refusing to be vaccinated. The more people get vaccinated, the better the chances of living with the virus.
A vaccine manufacturing facility will be built in Victoria to produce mRNA vaccines under an in-principle agreement between the federal government, the state government and global mRNA company Moderna
Some vaccines use mRNA to make copies of the triangular red spike proteins to induce immunity.
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The new omicron variant of coronavirus has a number of mutations that may require manufacturers to update vaccines. The unique attributes of mRNA vaccines make updating them fast and easy.
Rift Valley Fever virus, 3D illustration.
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The new variant is a warning: unless we take urgent action to correct global vaccine inequities, we risk the emergence of further variants, some of which may evade vaccines.
Reverse vaccination teaches the immune system to ignore rather than attack self-proteins.
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A recent lab-stage study finds that preexposure to the proteins used to treat conditions like hemophilia A could help train the immune system to tolerate rather than attack therapies.
Jane Kelsey, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
With the World Trade Organization’s 12th Ministerial Conference – arguably its most important ever – happening next week, attempts to keep it ‘on life support’ may be counterproductive.
Thousands took to streets across Australia to protest COVID19 lockdown measures and vaccine mandates. How are white supremacist and right wing groups capitalising on vaccine hesitancy?
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