Week in Review

 

April 22, 2023 Routine immunisations: reversing the decline “One challenge Pate did not mention is vaccine hesitancy, which continues to threaten childhood immunisation. A new UNICEF report warns that public perception of the importance of childhood vaccines declined during the COVID-19 pandemic in 52 of 55 countries studied. A Lancet Viewpoint by Douglas J Opel published earlier this year, exploring how the COVID-19 pandemic might affect confidence in US childhood vaccinations, proposed a series of measures, including scientific literacy, further research on risk perception, reduction of childhood vaccination inequities, and restoration of trust in medicine and public health. Without tackling vaccine hesitancy, any attempt to boost coverage rates will struggle.”

April 21, 2023 – ‘The Top Line’: How Pfizer became the first in Big Pharma history to break $100B in sales, plus this week’s headlines “Video 2022 was the third straight year where the coronavirus pandemic had an extreme effect on the revenue of several biopharma companies. Pfizer became the first in industry history to rack up more than $100 billion in sales. We discuss how other companies fared in 2022 and what can we expect this year.

April 21, 2023 – Risk of Protection Failure with Certain O&M Halyard Surgical N95 Respirators, Surgical Masks, and Pediatric Face Masks: FDA Safety CommunicationAs of April 12, 2023, O&M Halyard has not initiated a voluntary recall. The FDA is working to ensure O&M Halyard surgical N95 respirators, surgical masks, and pediatric face masks are appropriate for their intended use and provide the level of protection claimed. The FDA continues to evaluate product samples and assess for possible concerns for O&M Halyard respirators and masks. The FDA is also working with international regulatory authorities about this issue.”

April 21, 2023 – Immunogenicity and protective efficacy of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine encoding secreted non-stabilized spike in female miceCurrently there are at least 11 approved vaccines using various technology platforms, including mRNA, inactivated virus, viral-vector and recombinant protein. The vaccine effectiveness is varied due to several factors such as the emergence of new variants, study population, and prevalence of the outbreak during the period the studies were conducted. Although the currently available vaccines do not completely prevent infection, they are efficacious in reducing severe symptoms of infected individuals. Unfortunately, it has also been proven that vaccine efficacy decreases over time. Together with the emergence of new VOCs, a booster dose (either homologous or heterologous vaccine modality) is required to enhance the vaccine effectiveness.

April 19, 2023 How Parents’ Views Are Tied to Children’s COVID-19 VaccinationParents who were worried about the long-term risks of the COVID-19 vaccine in children were 6% less likely to have vaccinated their children, according to an internet panel survey of 1715 parents with at least 1 child between the ages of 5 and 17 years. In addition, 18% of surveyed parents said they would feel more responsible if their child became sick after COVID-19 vaccination than if they became sick without vaccination. The survey was performed in February and March 2022, when the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant was predominant.”

April 19, 2023Long COVID Incidence in a Large US Ambulatory Electronic Health Record System “Multivariate models predicting the presence of long COVID symptoms 12-20 weeks post-index controlled for age, sex, race, ethnicity, geographic region, BMI, CCI, and vaccine status. While exact values shift slightly between models, in general, female sex, living in a US census region other than the northeast, higher CCI, and BMI (25-29.9 or <18.5) were associated with increased odds of long COVID symptoms (Web Table 3). By contrast, non-white race, BMI of 30 or greater, and a vaccine status of unknown or first dose more than 12 weeks after index were associated with lower odds of long COVID symptoms. Age alone was not associated with odds of long COVID symptoms.

April 18, 2023 – HIV vaccine research ‘at a crossroads’ after recent failures “There are no HIV vaccines currently available, and after the recent failures of three experimental vaccines in development, there are now zero candidates in late-stage trials.”

April 14, 2023 – Rutgers Launches Lyme Disease Vaccine Study “The university is participating in the effort to determine the efficacy of what could be the first vaccine to prevent Lyme disease in children ages 5 to 17 “The Pediatric Clinical Research Center at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick — one of approximately 50 research sites nationwide and the only clinical trial site in New Jersey — is enrolling 50 to 100 children ages 5 to 17 who have not been diagnosed with Lyme disease in the past three months for the two-year study, which will include 3,000 children.

April 13, 2023 – Subnational governments and COVID management “Jelnov & Jelnov (2022) investigates the relationship between corruption, trust, and COVID vaccination. They find that the countries perceived as less corrupt and more liberal experience higher vaccination rates and are less likely to adopt a mandatory vaccination policy. The result follows from the perception that there is a lower probability that a transparent and accountable government would promote an unsafe vaccine.

April 11, 2023 A framework for setting enrollment goals to ensure participant diversity in sponsored clinical trials in the United States “We compared race and ethnicity distributions of six diseases from Pfizer’s portfolio chosen to represent different therapeutic areas (multiple myeloma, fungal infections, Crohn’s disease, Gaucher disease, COVID-19, and Lyme disease) in the RWD to the distributions in the US Census and established trial enrollment goals. Enrollment goals for potential CTs were based on RWD for multiple myeloma, Gaucher disease, and COVID-19; for fungal infections, Crohn’s disease, and Lyme disease, enrollment goals were based on the Census.”