In just three short years, mRNA vaccines have saved millions of lives, achieved household recognition and, as of this week, become the subject of a Nobel prize. Yet the field shows no signs of slowing down.

In the wake of the technology’s dramatic success in generating quick-turnaround COVID-19 vaccines, investors have poured billions of dollars into expanding mRNA’s therapeutic reach.

This influx of cash promises to fuel the research and infrastructure needed to deploy mRNA medicines in ways that could transform public health by tackling hard-to-treat infectious diseases, cancers and rare genetic disorders.

Read more at Nature.

A biochemist born in Hungary and an American immunologist have won the 2023 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for research that led to the development of the two most important COVID-19 vaccines.

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman met at copy machine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and collaborated for decades to try to find ways to use genetic material called messenger RNA, or mRNA, to make vaccines.

The scientists discovered that modifying a chemical building block of mRNA kept the immune system from destroying the material and enabled it to instead stimulate protection against viruses. They published a seminal paper describing their work in 2005.

Read more at NPR.

Public health experts are urging people to take advantage of the fact that this year, for the first time, vaccines are available for three major respiratory viruses: flu, COVID and RSV.

As winter approaches, public health authorities are worried that too few Americans are planning to get vaccinated against three major respiratory viruses. That’s according to a new report released yesterday. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein has more.

ROB STEIN, BYLINE: For years, everyone could get a flu shot every fall. And the COVID vaccines have helped protect millions during the pandemic. Now, for the first time, anyone age 60 and older can also get vaccinated against RSV, which can also be life threatening. So CDC Director Mandy Cohen is urging everyone who’s eligible to take advantage of this trio of vaccines.

Read more at NPR.

Getting a shot of the COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy works to pass on protection against the virus to newborns during their most vulnerable early months of life, a new study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

Maternal vaccination was 54% effective against COVID-19 hospitalization in infants younger than 3 months old over the past season. 

The findings from the CDC-backed Overcoming COVID-19 Network were published Thursday in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. They drew from data on hospitalizations from 26 pediatric hospitals around the country through May 2023.

Read more at CBS.

Vaccines for pets are critically important for several reasons. They’re essential to maintain the health and well-being of domesticated animals and to prevent the spread of diseases to humans. But in recent years there has been a decline in vaccination rates and trust by pet owners, especially those who own dogs.

The growing vaccine hesitancy in recent years is in no small part due to misinformation and disinformation about human vaccinations during the Covid-19 pandemic. But the hesitancy and misinformation is beginning to spill over to pet owners, who are delaying or refusing vaccines for their animals. This poses major public health concerns for humans and canines alike given that 45% of U.S. households own a dog and some diseases that affect dogs, called zoonotic diseases, can also affect humans.

Read more at Forbes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended a vaccine for people in late pregnancy that will protect their babies from respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, after birth.

Last week’s guidance comes shortly after another RSV shot was approved and recommended by government agencies that protects infants and high-risk toddlers heading into their first or second RSV season.

“This is another tool we can use this fall and winter to help protect lives,” said Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the CDC. “I encourage parents to talk to their doctors about how to protect their little ones against serious RSV illness, using either a vaccine given during pregnancy, or an RSV immunization given to your baby after birth.”

Read more at USA Today.

An independent panel of advisers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that everyone over the age of 6 months get the updated COVID vaccine this fall.

“Even children and adults with no underlying conditions can still experience severe illness due to COVID,” said Dr. Sandra Fryhofer, an adjunct associate professor of medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine.

Most infectious disease experts agree with the recommendations made by the federal health agency.

Read more at ABC.

COVID vaccines have been updated to include protection against new variants of the virus that are currently circulating, but that’s not the only thing that has changed. Equally significant is that the vaccine is largely no longer paid for by the federal government, now that the Public Health Emergency for the pandemic, in place from January 2020 until last May, has ended.

That means that most of the COVID shots will now be paid for by insurance, whether private insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid. Medicare and Medicaid pay the full cost, as do most private insurers.

Read more at Verywell Health.

More than three years since COVID-19 reached these shores, widespread misinformation continues to inhibit reasonable measures intended to keep the vulnerable safe and to protect public health.

The latest fiction riling folks up is the falsehood that a new COVID wave will usher in the return of statewide mask mandates, school closures or business restrictions. But this isn’t 2020 and it’s important those myths be dispelled.

It’s true that there are new variants of the virus widely circulating across the United States, including here in Virginia. This was expected and public health officials have been closely monitoring the spread of these mutations and their danger to the general population.

Read more at Bedford Gazette.

Every year since 2010, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that everyone in the country ages 6 months and older receive a flu vaccine.

But that has resulted in just fewer than half of all adults and about 58% of kids getting the shot each year, according to CDC data.

Covid-19 vaccines have a ways to go to catch up. Just 21% of US adults received a bivalent booster, the last version available before the US Food and Drug Administration authorized an updated Covid vaccine this month. Among kids, the numbers are much lower: less than 8% of everyone under 18.

Read more at CNN.