Ebola vaccine (Mvabea)

First mRNA Cancer Vaccine Succeeds in Phase III Trial.

Adding the mRNA-based individualized neoantigen vaccine intismeran autogene to the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab following surgery for melanoma reduced the risk of disease recurrence or death by 42%, according to the results of the phase III INTerpath-0001 trial. The data were presented at the ESMO Congress 2026, held October 23-27, in Madrid, Spain.

Innovative vaccine strategies for sustainable control and eradication of peste des petits ruminants virus.

Bello Muhammad Bashir MB, Hameed Sodiq A SA, Abdullahi Adama Musa AM, Lawal Nafi'u N et al.

Childhood at Risk: Quantile Insights Into Abuse Rates Amid Pandemic Uncertainty.

Anser Muhammad Khalid MK, Ali Sajid S, Nazar Raima R, Fakher Amjad A

Uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified psychological strain and financial hardship, driving a troubling rise in child abuse across the world. As families grapple with instability, children become the silent victims, suffering from increased neglect and violence in environments meant to protect them. This study investigates how pandemic-induced uncertainty asymmetrically influences child abuse in 10 heterogeneous nations: the USA, Brazil, India, Germany, Japan, South Africa, Mexico, Nigeria, Australia, and the Philippines. Using the World Pandemic Uncertainty Index, which captures uncertainty arising from several disease outbreaks, including SARS, avian flu, MERS, Ebola, and COVID-19, the analysis applies the Quantile-on-Quantile methodology to trace fluctuations in the variables across quantiles within each country. Unlike traditional panel-based models, this method allows for a nuanced, country-specific analysis that reveals significant nonlinearities.ResultsThe findings show that pandemic uncertainty significantly increases child abuse rates in most of the selected nations. The findings reveal substantial asymmetries in the pandemic uncertainty-child abuse relationship across countries and quantiles, indicating that the effects of uncertainty are neither uniform nor linear. The results underscore the need for policymakers to undertake comprehensive monitoring and design resilient strategies that respond to shifts in pandemic uncertainty and child abuse.

A Carriage-Structured Model of Meningococcal Meningitis: Backward Bifurcation, Seasonal Recurrence, and the Reach of Conjugate-Vaccine Strategies in the African Meningitis Belt.

Gatyeni Siphokazi Princess SP

Epidemic meningococcal meningitis in the African meningitis belt recurs on two timescales: a sharp annual dry-season peak and irregular multi-annual epidemics five to twelve years apart, whose mechanistic origin remains unsettled. Invasive disease is a rare, dead-end outcome of asymptomatic nasopharyngeal carriage, so susceptible-infectious templates misrepresent community transmission. We ask how carriage structure shapes bifurcation, seasonal recurrence, and the reach of conjugate-vaccine strategies. We formulate a deterministic carriage-structured model in which only carriers transmit, immunity against re-acquisition is leaky, and a conjugate vaccine is imperfect and wanes. We use the Castillo-Chavez-Song centre manifold method, numerical continuation, Floquet and eigenvalue analysis, and scenario simulations of abstract rate- and pulse-type interventions parameterised from published belt ranges. The basic reproduction number R0 is a property of carriage transmission, decoupled to first order from disease incidence. Backward bifurcation at R0=1 is governed by a threshold ε∗ on carriage-blocking immunity; only the untreated fatality hazard and treatment capacity are absent from the local condition. It is impossible without vaccination and, with any positive routine coverage, persists across the plausible coverage range, giving vaccine-induced bistability. Continuation confirms a fold at R0,c≈0.946 (φ=0.12yr-1, weak carriage immunity), but not at baseline immunity. Under seasonal forcing, dynamics converge to a simple annual cycle throughout the region searched; we found no multi-annual recurrence, although damped eigenmodes of the unforced system have periods overlapping the observed interval. Within this deterministic, single-strain model, irregular recurrence likely requires additional structure, with stochastic amplification of damped cycles a natural next step. Whether sustained immunisation eliminates epidemics or merely postpones them may depend on the same carriage-efficacy threshold that governs the bistability result.