Can AstraZeneca dispel doubts about its shots?
With the company caught up in murky data releases and public relations misfires, experts worry that the world may turn its back on a vaccine that still holds promise for combating the pandemic.
ByLinda Marsa
The AstraZeneca shot was supposed to be
the vaccine for a couple of billion people. It is inexpensive at just a couple of dollars per dose and can be stored in an ordinary fridge unlike the mRNA vaccines. But after reports the shot may trigger a rare side effect, and the company’s string of communication blunders, public health officials worry that the people in some countries may have lost faith in the world’s most important vaccine.
The Epidemic Intelligence Service
Today’s CDC is known for assisting U.S. state health departments and other countries’ ministries of health during local outbreaks and emergency responses. While the malaria control program set precedent for this practice, the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) improved CDC’s ability to support states. Dr. Alexander D. Langmuirexternal icon created the EIS program in 1951 to aid the states in the control of communicable disease.
At its inception, the EIS program was part of the U.S. government’s efforts to detect biological warfare during the Korean War, but its success in detecting outbreaks led to it continuing today. Now, it’s a 2-year training program for health professionals interested in the practice of
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Table of Contents
The Science Behind Vaccines
Carolina Lucas, Ph.D. is a member of the 2018 class of the Pew Latin American Fellows Program. She is a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University, focusing on virology and immunology.
Felicia Goodrum, Ph.D. is a member of the 2008 class of the Pew Biomedical Scholars Program and a 2017 Innovation Fund investigator. She is a researcher and professor at the University of Arizona and BIO5 Institute, focusing on molecular virology and cell biology.
For centuries, vaccines have safeguarded people against infectious disease. Today, roughly 7 out of 10 Americans believe vaccination is important yet recent studies show that vaccination rates in more than half of U.S. states have been on the decline. And with the current push to develop and distribute vaccines in response to COVID-19 the disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 many people have questions about vaccine reliability, safety, and development.
Global Covid vaccine plan can take a lesson from polio campaign
Global Covid vaccine plan can take a lesson from polio campaign
Polio triggered no pandemics, no economic crashes. Yet the large-scale campaign against what was once called infantile paralysis is arguably the closest precedent to today’s effort.
Clara Ferreira Marques 1 March, 2021 8:54 am IST Text Size:
“The vaccine works. It is safe, effective, and potent.”
In 1955, those were the words that told the world U.S. scientist Jonas Salk’s polio shot was a success. It was news greeted with popular jubilation, ringing church bells and boldface banner headlines. The sort of heartfelt relief that most of us can readily identify with, more than a year into a coronavirus pandemic that has now killed 2.5 million people.