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Dec 3, 2014

Vaccines: Taking a Shot at Protection

The worldwide hepatitis B virus (HBV) epidemic frequently feels personal for Indermohan Narula, a physician in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Earlier this year, he saw a young woman whose liver was so scarred by HBV infection that, were she to continue her pregnancy, she would have put her life at risk. Her liver disease was untreatable, so he did what he could: he encouraged her to protect herself by ending the pregnancy and avoiding fatty foods and alcohol. “The question now is what she can do for herself and her family,” he says.

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Dec 3, 2014

Want UHC? Improve data quality — WHO

Global efforts to promote universal health coverage in the new sustainable development goals are getting into high gear as we approach 2015, and stakeholders are discussing different avenues to move forward on providing about 1 billion people worldwide with access to decent health care.

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Dec 2, 2014

Interoperability Leaps Ahead

Interoperability has taken a big step forward. A post in HIE Watch says that Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania and xG Health Solutions in Columbia USA, a company that Geisinger founded, have connected a software app to an EHR using a new draft standard developed by Health Level Seven (HL7), the international standards organization.

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Dec 2, 2014

STC Manages Vaccine Inventory to Help Provinces Better Respond to Outbreaks

Alberta Health, with its vision of “Healthy Albertans in a Healthy Alberta,” has become the first Canadian government agency to implement the state-of-the-art vaccine inventory management system developed by Scientific Technologies Corporation (STC). The new Vaccine Inventory Management Solution (VIMS) is designed to provide timely data for the efficient and effective tracking of the vaccine supply, thus reducing vaccine waste and shortages seen in outbreaks or pandemics.

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Dec 2, 2014

WHO Stresses Value of Vaccine in Preventing Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer, a preventable sexually transmitted disease, kills an estimated 270,000 women each year, 85 percent of whom live in developing countries, the World Health Organization said. More than a half million women each year become infected with the human papillomavirus, which causes cervical cancer, the U.N. agency said.

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Dec 1, 2014

The Miracle of Vaccines

Imagine there’s an infectious disease spreading through your community. It leaves some people crippled; others die from it. Then someone comes along and says: “Here’s something that will protect you from this disease for the rest of your life. You and your family can have it, for free.” You would be very relieved, right?

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Nov 30, 2014

Stephen Harper announces $500 million in global vaccination aid

DAKAR, SENEGAL—Prime Minister Stephen Harper has announced Canada will donate $500 million to a program aimed at providing vaccines for children around the world. Harper made the announcement Friday in Senegal, where he is attending this weekend’s summit of la Francophonie.

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Nov 27, 2014

Tiered Pricing: What Pharmaceutical Companies can do to Improve Access to Medicines and Vaccines

While making medicines and vaccines more affordable won’t on its own solve the problem of access to medicines – many of the medicines and vaccines that children need already have high-quality, inexpensive generic versions – when it comes to making sure children benefit from the newest and most innovative medicines and vaccines, affordability is critical.

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Nov 26, 2014

Walk and chew gum: why bold investments can help stem multiple health crises simultaneously

Ebola has generated news around the world this autumn as an unprecedented global health crisis requiring urgent global action. At the same time, far from the headlines, millions of children continue to die from simple, preventable diseases like pneumonia and diarrhoea. Vaccines are some of the lowest-cost, highest-impact ways to help reduce these preventable child deaths, and yet today nearly one in five children around the world does not have access to these life-saving interventions.

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Nov 26, 2014

Ebola Vaccines: Why Clinical Trials Are Just the First Step

With clinical trials for Ebola vaccines now under way, and with governments and manufacturers stepping up to fund them, there is an almost palpable sense that the panic is over and the problem solved. The reality, however, is that even if a safe and effective vaccine emerges and the epidemic is brought under control, we are still in many ways no better prepared for future outbreaks than we were a year ago.

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