Science Media Centre

New research shows that perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), widely used in manufactured products such as non-stick cookware, waterproof clothing, and fast-food packaging, are associated with lowered immune response to vaccinations in children. Danish and American researchers analysed data from 587 children tested for immune response to tetanus and diphtheria vaccinations at ages 5 and 7 years. [...]

The MeNZB vaccine developed to control New Zealand’s meningococcal B epidemic in 2004-5 has helped researchers to create another, more advanced vaccine targeting more variants of the bacterial pathogen. The MeNZB vaccine was a  regionally specific vaccine for New Zealand targeting the B serotype of the bacteria Neisseria meningitidis, which cause meningococcal diseases, including meningitis. [...]

Whooping cough infections are on the rise and health officials are concerned the number of cases could reach epidemic proportions. Despite a free national vaccination scheme, cases of whooping cough are increasing in the northern South Island. Crown Research Institute ESR has confirmed to Radio New Zealand that  there has been 147 cases identified this [...]

New Zealanders who invested about $200 million in creating and using a vaccine for serogroup B meningococcal disease — just in time for it to be used as that epidemic began to wane naturally — did gain an important longterm legacy: the National Immunisation Register (NIR). The NIR went live nationally in December 2005, to [...]

New Zealand’s immunisation program has drastically reduced the prevalence of many potentially life-threatening communicable diseases, but it wont rest on it’s laurels when there is still room for improvement. This week is New Zealand’s National Immunisation Week, promoted by the Ministry of Health as a part of a larger World Health Organisation initiative. An awareness [...]

AusSMC: Australia’s free human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine program for young women has decreased the diagnosis of genital warts by 59 per cent in that age group. A University of New South Wales study published today in Lancet Infectious Diseases has found that men may have also benefited from this positive spin-off, with a decrease in [...]

Up to 20% of kiwi babies are falling through the gaps and failing to be immunised, for reasons including poor public knowledge and a lack of engagement from health care and ante-natal practitioners. An excerpt: (read in full here) “Midwives and ante-natal educators were told that immunisation was an after-birth activity and many did not [...]

Australia’s Chief Medical Officer today told doctors in Australia to stop giving the seasonal flu vaccine to children under the age of five. The advice follows concerns the vaccine is adversely affecting children’s health after more than 20 children in Western Australia had adverse reactions including suffering from high fever and in some cases convulsions. [...]

Doctors are saying that more education of parents is needed if immunisation rates in New Zealand are going to reach government targets. An excerpt: (read in full here) “The vice-president of the Royal College of GPs, Tony Townsend, says about 5% of parents make a conscious decision to not immunise their children, and that is [...]

Janine Rankin of the Manawatu Standard reports on the start of efforts to immunise those most at risk from swine flu. The H1N1 vaccine is initially only available to those most at risk – health workers, the morbidly obese, the very young and pregnant women – and will roll out to the rest of the [...]