Media/Policy Watch
This section is intended to alert readers to substantive news, analysis and opinion from the general media on vaccines, immunization, global; public health and related themes. Media Watch is not intended to be exhaustive, but indicative of themes and issues CVEP is actively tracking. This section will grow from an initial base of newspapers, magazines and blog sources, and is segregated from Journal Watch above which scans the peer-reviewed journal ecology.

We acknowledge the Western/Northern bias in this initial selection of titles and invite suggestions for expanded coverage. We are conservative in our outlook in adding news sources which largely report on primary content we are already covering above. Many electronic media sources have tiered, fee-based subscription models for access. We will provide full-text where content is published without restriction, but most publications require registration and some subscription level.

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The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
How We Can End the Anti-vaccination Feud
5 March 2015
by John Hewko, General secretary of Rotary International
It is time to move beyond the blame game regarding childhood vaccinations and replace it with honest dialogue and outreach in order to ensure the current measles outbreak — which has infected more than 170 people in 17 states — doesn’t happen again. This follows a record 644 cases in 2014, the highest caseload since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared that measles had been eliminated in our country in 2000.
Continuing the current tone of confrontation will only aggravate the growing schism between those who refuse vaccinations and those of us who believe vaccines are the public’s best defense against communicable diseases. The real public health solution is to identify common ground and talk to each other…

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New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Accessed 7 March 2015
Last Known Ebola Patient in Liberia Is Discharged
5 March 2015
Liberia’s last Ebola patient was discharged on Thursday after a ceremony in the capital, Monrovia, bringing to zero the number of known cases in the country and marking a milestone in West Africa’s battle against the disease. Officials in Monrovia, the city where the raging epidemic littered the streets with bodies only five months ago, celebrated even as they warned that Liberia was at least weeks away from being officially declared free of Ebola. They also noted that the disease had flared up recently in neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea, the two other countries hardest hit by it…

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Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/home-page?_wsjregion=na,us&_homepage=/home/us
Accessed 7 March 2015
Virulent Flu Strain in Europe Hits Economy
Europe’s convalescent economy faces a new burden: an unusually virulent strain of flu that is shutting down schools, stopping commuter trains, and keeping workers and consumers in bed. In Germany, the cost of the epidemic could reach $2.4 billion, according to an economic institute.
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