Starting July 25, 2023, The Colorado Department of Health and Environment (CDPHE) will send text message and email notifications to parents and guardians of more than 134,000 children from birth through four years whose records in the Colorado Immunization Information System show they may be due for one or more routine childhood vaccines.

According to the CDPHE, vaccines included in this effort are hepatitis A, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, rubella, rotavirus, haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), pneumococcal, varicella (chickenpox), polio, and diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (DTaP).

Read more at KRDO.

When Dr. Mandy Cohen walked into the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta less than two weeks ago, she knew trust in America’s top health agency was broken.

Attacks on the agency’s scientific data and sometimes confusing public policy guidance were coming from Washington lawmakers, social media and people across the country.

In her first media interview as the new CDC director, Cohen said she is refocusing the agency on rebuilding faith with more transparency and improved communication and by “bringing the best evidence that we possibly can” to the public.

“It’s an everyday, tactical plan,” she said. 

Read more at NBC.

Starting Tuesday, July 18, some parents in Colorado will receive a text or email from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment notifying them that their children might be due for certain routine vaccinations.

The notifications will go to parents and guardians of children whose records in the Colorado Immunization Information System show they might be due for one or more routine childhood or adolescent vaccines. This includes more than 500,000 children and adolescents between the ages of seven and 18.

Read more at KRDO.

Fewer children around the world missed receiving routine vaccinations in 2022 compared to the year before, indicating a rebound in childhood immunizations following the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new statistics released by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.

Last year, 20.5 million children did not get one or more rounds of the DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) vaccine, which is used as a global marker for immunization coverage, according to a joint statement released Tuesday by WHO and UNICEF. That’s compared to the 24.4 million children who missed out on one ore more rounds of that vaccinate in 2021.

“These data are encouraging, and a tribute to those who have worked so hard to restore life-saving immunization services after two years of sustained decline in immunization coverage,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said in the statement. “But global and regional averages don’t tell the whole story and mask severe and persistent inequities. When countries and regions lag, children pay the price.”

Read more at NPR.

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a shot to protect infants and vulnerable toddlers against respiratory syncytial virus, or R.S.V., offering one of the first protections for an illness that fills children’s hospitals year after year.

The monoclonal antibody shot is expected to be available at the start of the fall R.S.V. season. The F.D.A. is also considering approval of an R.S.V. vaccine by Pfizer for pregnant women that is meant to protect infants from the virus.

The treatment approved on Monday, called Beyfortus by its developers Sanofi and AstraZeneca, addresses an illness that can be severe in older adults and young infants. About 80,000 children ages 5 and younger are hospitalized with the virus each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Read more at The New York Times.

The Biden administration is calling on COVID-19 vaccine makers to ensure the updated shots for the fall are priced affordably.

“Updated COVID-19 vaccines entering the market this fall should be priced at a reasonable rate, reflective of the value that you have obtained through U.S. government investment,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a Thursday letter to the CEOs of Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax.

“Price gouging behavior takes advantage of the trust the American people have placed in you through the COVID-19 response,” Becerra said.

Read more at The Hill.

The Biden administration on Thursday announced a program to provide free Covid vaccines to uninsured Americans through December 2024 after the federal government’s supply of shots runs out this fall.

Those free shots, which the government is purchasing at a discount, will be available to the uninsured at pharmacies and 64 state and local health departments.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also is hoping vaccine makers will donate shots to pharmacies as part of the program.

Read more at CNBC.

US health officials are moving forward with plans to sunset the federal government’s Covid-19 vaccine distribution program next month and move the vaccines to the commercial market this fall, and they are laying out their expectations to manufacturers about what that transition should look like.

On Thursday morning, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra sent a letter to the CEOs of Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax detailing how, after the transition to commercialization, HHS expects “that vaccines will remain available in the types of locations where the public currently receives them – including pharmacies, clinics, healthcare provider offices, health departments, and other points of care – to maximize access.”

Read more at CNN.

Human papillomavirus, or HPV, is a group of more than 200 related viruses that are spread by skin-to-skin and sexual contact. Not only is it the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States, but about half of the infections are with high-risk strains that are responsible for roughly 3% of all cancers in people assigned female at birth and 2% in those assigned male.

Fortunately, there’s a vaccine for HPV — and thanks to an October 2018 decision by the Food and Drug Administration, Gardasil 9 (the latest version of the vaccine) was approved for people up to age 45. That means people who were past the previous age limit of 26 have the green light to get catch-up jabs.

Read more at Huff Post.

By the end of this decade, it is projected that vaccines targeting cancer and heart disease could save millions of lives. Yet today, decades after safe and effective vaccines have been introduced and made publicly available, hundreds of thousands of deaths continue to occur from what should now be universally preventable diseases.

Why? Because vaccine technology alone does not save lives; for that, they also must be manufactured, procured, safely delivered along the supply chain and administered to individuals.

So, despite the incredible progress that has been achieved in recent decades against childhood diseases, with vaccines contributing to a more than 50% reduction in child mortality, serious gaps in global immunisation coverage continue to persist.

Read more at Gavi.