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 Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/
Accessed 2 July 2016
Zika Is the ‘Most Difficult’ Emergency Health Response Ever, CDC Official Says
24 June 2016 Julie Beck
How the virus is spread, its disproportionate danger for pregnant women, and the delay in its worst effects combine to make this outbreak particularly tough.

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Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/
Accessed 2 July 2016
The Hunt For A Zika Vaccine: Why The Olympics Should Be Postponed
It will likely be two years or more before a vaccine can come to market …
Kenneth L. Davis, Contributor Jun 30, 2016

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The Guardian
http://www.guardiannews.com/
Accessed 2 July 2016
More people in less space: rapid urbanisation threatens global health
As city populations swell worldwide, our ability to prevent and control infectious disease will come under ever greater strain
28 June 2016
By Seth Berkley
The global population looks set to rise to 9.7 billion people by 2050, when it is expected that more than two-thirds of humanity will be living in urban areas. The global health community is bracing itself. Compared to a more traditional rural existence, the shift in lifestyle and inevitable increase in exposure to pollution will lead to significant long-term rises in non-communicable diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Austin Fraktimmediate problems…

Zika virus vaccine for animals brings hope for human protection
Trial version in US giving successful immunisation to mice could help fight disease, but complications warned for those who have contracted dengue fever
28 June 2016
Ian Sample, Science editor
An experimental vaccine that completely protects animals from the Zika virus has raised hopes for a jab that can bring the fast-spreading disease under control…

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New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Accessed 2 July 2016
Low Prices for Vaccines Can Come at a Great Cost
Austin Frakt 27 June 2016
A $30,000 price tag for cancer drug therapy that extends life only a few weeks is understandably alarming. But a $2,000 price tag for all childhood vaccines — credited with eradicating smallpox, preventing a million or more cases of other diseases and averting thousands of deaths each year — is a bargain. In fact, the price of childhood vaccines may be too low for our own good because it contributes to shortages.

Vaccine shortages have popped up in the United States many times over the past 50 years. In 2001, eight of 11 recommended childhood vaccines were unavailable or in short supply. A recently published study by the economist David Ridley and other Duke University researchers found that between 2004 and 2014, an average of nearly three out of 22 vaccines were in short supply in the United States. In 2007, one-third of vaccines were. (Looking globally, limited vaccine supplies hampered the response to a recent yellow fever outbreak that began in Angola and spread elsewhere.)

Vaccine prices have gone up over the years, in large part because of newer vaccines that command higher prices. The number of recommended vaccine doses has also increased, which pushes up the overall cost of full vaccination. Still, vaccines are inexpensive relative to their value. A typical dose costs $50 and, apart from an annual flu shot, only a few doses are required over a lifetime. According to the Duke study, vaccines with lower prices were more likely to be in short supply than those with higher prices. There were no shortages of vaccines with a price per dose above $75…

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Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/home-page?_wsjregion=na,us&_homepage=/home/us
Accessed 2 July 2016
World
Refugee Crises in Mideast Spawn Health Threats
Years of conflict leave millions of displaced people vulnerable to communicable diseases
By Nour Malas
Updated June 27, 2016 6:22 p.m. ET
QAB ELIAS, Lebanon—Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees scattered in makeshift camps among the farms in the fertile Bekaa Valley are facing an increasingly worrisome threat: disease…

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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Accessed 2 July 2016
Why researchers are releasing millions of mosquitoes to combat the Zika virus
30 June 2016
In the world’s largest mosquito farm, millions of males are being bred at a furious pace for release on an island in Southern China. It’s all part of a plan to suppress a mosquito that can transmit the Zika virus. And so far, the results are stunning. The man behind this government-backed experiment is Xi Zhiyong, professor at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. Inside the fluorescent compound, Xi and a team of researchers are experimenting with using the biology of the Aedes mosquito against itself. The process goes like this. Male mosquitoes are infected with Wolbachia bacteria, which does two things: inhibit the Zika virus and disrupt the reproduction process. Researchers then cart the mosquitoes out to Shazai Island, where they are set free…

A yellow fever epidemic in Angola could turn into a global crisis
26 June 2016
Almost 80 years after the yellow fever vaccine was created in a New York laboratory, a massive outbreak of the disease has killed hundreds of people in this country, where most were never immunized. Now, the virus is jumping across borders into other nations whose populations are also largely unvaccinated. More than 3,000 suspected cases are in Angola and 1,000 are in neighboring Congo, making this the biggest urban epidemic in decades. More than 400 people have died. There are growing concerns that Chinese workers — of whom there are thousands in Angola — will carry the virus to Asia, where nearly all of the rural poor are also unvaccinated…