“The Morning Briefing” is SmartPlanet’s daily roundup of must-reads from the web. This morning we’re reading about vaccine development.
1.) Meningitis vaccine gets Europe nod. Families who have lost children to meningitis B are among campaigners pressing the government to introduce a new vaccine against the disease, following its approval by the European Medicines Agency.
2.) UIHC tests new flu vaccine. Researchers at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics are taking part in a clinical trial to test a new vaccine for the H3N2 Variant flu virus. It’s a virus that’s similar to the H1N1 virus from 2009.
3.) India’s Serum Institute offers cheap polio vaccine. Indian billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla, founder of the world’s biggest maker of vaccines, will cut the price of polio immunisation and introduce shots for diarrhoea and pneumonia, undercutting Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline.
4.) A better flu vaccine requires public-private cooperation. Influenza vaccines are the best weapons we’ve got against a disease that each year kills as many as a half-million people, including 3,000 to 49,000 Americans. Yet this season’s worse-than-usual flu in the U.S. underscores the limitations of the existing vaccines.
5.) 800 children in Europe develop narcolepsy after swine flu vaccine. 800 children in Europe have developed narcolepsy after taking the swine flu vaccine, according to reports.
Photo credit: Andres Rueda
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