Science Translational Medicine
10 September 2014 vol 6, issue 253
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/current

INFECTIOUS DISEASE
Emerging Viral Diseases: Confronting Threats with New Technologies
Hilary D. Marston, Gregory K. Folkers, David M. Morens and Anthony S. Fauci*
Author Affiliations
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
Abstract
Emerging viral diseases pose ongoing health threats, particularly in an era of globalization; however, new biomedical research technologies such as genome sequencing and structure-based vaccine and drug design have improved our ability to respond to viral threats.
Perspective
VACCINES
Contemporary Vaccine Challenges: Improving Global Health One Shot at a Time
Walter A. Orenstein1,*, Katherine Seib1, Duncan Graham-Rowe2 and Seth Berkley2
Author Affiliations
1Emory University, School of Medicine, Department of Infectious Diseases, Atlanta, GA, USA.
2Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Geneva, Switzerland.
Vaccines have proved to be one of the most powerful and effective ways of reducing disease. However, if we are to maximize their impact on global health, then we need to develop new vaccines for additional diseases as well as to improve their supply and delivery, particularly in developing countries.
[Concluding paragraph]
…Vaccines and vaccination have been one of the world’s great success stories in reducing disease, disability, and death. The progress expected in the next decade will lead to the prevention of ever greater health burdens. However, to maintain this impact and to achieve the full potential vaccines have to offer, current efforts, using existing vaccines, must be sustained and even bolstered. And new vaccines, now under development or to be developed in the future, must be made available to all countries with populations that could benefit from those vaccines. This includes removing financial barriers to vaccine access while assuring that financial incentives remain in place to develop new vaccines. In addition, delivery systems must be supported in order to make sure that vaccines can be transported to all populations, can be stored at recommended temperatures, and can be administered to all in need. Optimal control of disease through vaccination can be facilitated by the development of vaccines that do not require a cold chain and do not require delivery through needle and syringe. Vaccines are the one medical intervention recommended repeatedly for all children, and efforts should be made to link vaccination efforts to the delivery of other critical health care services. There is also a need to support a research base to develop new vaccines so as to increase the numbers of diseases preventable by vaccination. In addition, it is critical to have substantial interaction between vaccine developers and regulatory authorities in order to assure that development plans, if successful, will yield a licensed vaccine. Thus, the vaccine enterprise will require collaboration of basic scientists, vaccine developers, manufacturers, vaccine and vaccination financiers, governments, regulators, and public and private sector vaccine deliverers, among others, to create successful, complex systems and products for the future.