Vaccines have been heavy in the news lately after an analysis by the Associated Press found that a rising number of parents are opting out of school shots.
Some parents report skipping the shots because they don’t see them as necessary, fear they carry their own risks or simply don’t feel like filling out the paperwork.
The states with the most parents opting out of shots are in the West and Upper Midwest. The AP found that parents who opt out tend to live in pockets where a large number of parents also opt out. There are counties in northeast Washington, for example, where the exemption rate is as high as 50 percent.
Experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worry that a high number of parents opting out of the shots means diseases such as polio and diphtheria could make a comeback.
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China’s vaccine-making prowess captured world attention in 2009 when one of its companies developed the first effective vaccine against swine flu — in just 87 days — as the new virus swept the globe. In the past, new vaccine developments had usually been won by the U.S. and Europe.
Then, this past March the World Health Organization announced that China’s drug safety authority meets international standards for vaccine regulation. It opened the doors for Chinese vaccines to be submitted for WHO approval so they can be bought by U.N. agencies and the GAVI Alliance.
“China is a vaccine-producing power” with more than 30 companies that have an annual production capacity of nearly 1 billion doses — the largest in the world, the country’s State Food and Drug Administration told The Associated Press.
But more needs to be done to build confidence in Chinese vaccines overseas, said Helen Yang of Sinovac, the NASDAQ-listed Chinese biotech firm that rapidly developed the H1N1 swine flu vaccine. “We think the main obstacle is that we have the name of ‘made in China’ still. That is an issue.”
HYDERABAD(South India): The precious lives of millions of people suffering from AIDs, Tuberculosis and Malaria, that take a heavy toll of life every year across the world, are at stake with the Geneva-based “Global Fund(GF)” financing several countries to fight these diseases, announcing stoppage of funds till 2014.Bogged down by allegations of swindling and mismanagement of funds, and the crunch, triggered by the worst debt crisis in donor countries of Europe and the USA forced the GF to take this extreme step, ringing alarm bells in the beneficiary nations including India.
Bogged down by allegations of swindling and mismanagement of funds, and the crunch, triggered by the worst debt crisis in donor countries of Europe and the USA forced the GF to take this extreme step, ringing alarm bells in the beneficiary nations including India.The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is an international financing institution that invests the world’s money to save lives. To date, it has committed US$ 22.4 billion in 150 countries to support large-scale prevention, treatment and care programs against the three diseases.
China’s food and drug safety record in recent years hardly inspires confidence: in 2007, Chinese cough syrup killed 93 people in Central America; one year later, contaminated blood thinner led to dozens of deaths in the United States while tainted milk powder poisoned hundreds of thousands of Chinese babies and killed six.
Worldwide vaccine sales were $25.3 billion last year and some doctors, especially those that work with patients in third-world countries, such as Doctors Without Borders, welcome China’s competition in the vaccine market in the hopes that it will drive prices down.More at Source
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