Tag Archives: vaccine

2019, Fresh Science

Whooping cough is fighting back.

Image credit: Pixabay 

Researchers discover how whooping cough is evolving paving the way to a new vaccine.

Laurence Luu, The University of New South Wales

Whooping cough strains are adapting to better infect humans, a team of Sydney researchers has found.

The scientists, led by microbiologist Dr Laurence Luu of the University of New South Wales, may have solved the mystery of why, despite widespread vaccinations, the respiratory disease has been resurgent in Australia across the past decade. There have been more than 200,000 cases recorded during the period.

Continue reading Whooping cough is fighting back. →
2017

After 160 years, it’s time to throw away the needle and syringe

Professor Mark Kendall is planning to dispatch the 160-year-old needle and syringe to history. He’s invented a new vaccine technology that’s painless, uses a fraction of the dose, puts the vaccine just under the skin, and doesn’t require a fridge.

The Nanopatch is a 1 cm square piece of silicon with 20,000 microscopic needles engineered on one side. Coat the needles with dry vaccine, push it gently but firmly against the skin, and the vaccine is delivered just under the outer layer of skin.

It’s a technology he invented in response to a call from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation seeking ideas for delivery of vaccines in developing countries—where it’s a challenge to keep conventional wet vaccines cold to the point of delivery.

Continue reading After 160 years, it’s time to throw away the needle and syringe →

2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

A five-in-one vaccine for all Indonesian children

Indonesia is rolling out a five-in-one vaccine that they plan to deliver in a single shot to every Indonesian child to protect them against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib).

The rollout is supported by the Australian Government through GAVI, the global vaccine alliance. The vaccine is manufactured by Bio Farma, who also hope to add rotavirus to the vaccines in the future.

2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

Boosting vaccine performance

Vaccines work best when they include an adjuvant, something that boosts your immune system’s reaction to the vaccine.

University of Melbourne researchers have recreated a fragment of a bacteria protein that activates white blood cells.

In 2012, they signed a research agreement with Bio Farma to help them turn their idea into a novel vaccine platform that could enhance vaccines for hepatitis, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, and other diseases.

2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

About PT BioFarma

Bio Farma was established in 1890 and is a state-owned business that provides all the vaccines on Indonesia’s immunisation schedule. That’s 1.7 billion doses a year.

Bio Farma is also a major supplier to UN agencies and global health initiatives, producing, for example, 1.4 billion doses of polio vaccines of which about 20 million doses are for Indonesian use.

The company is based in Bandung about 100 km east of Jakarta.

2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

New targets for tuberculosis vaccine

Better vaccines are needed for the global fight against tuberculosis (TB) with nine million new cases annually. Indonesia had more than 320,000 reported cases in 2014, while Australia’s reported cases were just over 1,000. But the rise of drug-resistant TB poses a threat to all countries.

Two proteins from the tuberculosis bacterium have shown promising results in investigations for a new vaccine in mice. Scientists from Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta, with colleagues from the Centenary Institute and the University of Sydney in Australia, have found that the injected proteins can prime the immune system to induce protection against TB in mice.

Continue reading New targets for tuberculosis vaccine →

2016, Australia-Indonesia Collaboration

A universal flu vaccine

A broad-spectrum flu vaccine is being developed to give better immunity to seasonal influenza strains and increased protection against future influenza pandemics.

The technology was created by researchers at the Australian National University and the University of Adelaide, who set up Gamma Vaccines to commercialise their ideas.

In 2013, Gamma Vaccines signed a three-way development agreement with Bio Farma and SOHO Industri Pharmasi to develop, manufacture, trial, and distribute the vaccine in Indonesia and other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries.