The Booster Bulletin: Your Weekly Dose of Immunization News

We’re committed to sharing news and information from local and national media about COVID-19, available vaccines, and immunization-related topics. Each week we’ll continue to review clips from across the U.S., from various news outlets and platforms, and bring you ten timely and relevant links. 

Staring off this week with Global Citizen’s “17 Famous Female Scientists Who Helped Change the World”

And CBS News brings us “Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, Who Worked on COVID Vaccine,​ on Changing the Game in Science: ‘It Is an Honor to Be Inspirational’”  “At just 36 years old, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett worked night and day with a team of scientists developing Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine in record time. She has also taken on vaccine hesitancy, and has spent her career fighting for equality in healthcare. Her hard work caught the attention of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which provided funding for studies that Corbett contributed to. ‘She's an absolute game changer because when she was at that National Institutes of Health, she really laid down the backbone for the COVID-19 vaccine,’ Melinda French Gates told ‘CBS Mornings.’”

And now, we return you to the latest in vaccine news…

“Evidence Grows That Vaccines Lower the Risk of Getting Long COVID” NPR (March 24, 2022) – “The chance of even a mild case of COVID-19 turning into a long-term, debilitating medical condition is one of the greatest fears of Americans trying to navigate the pandemic, which is again taking a turn as new data show the BA.2 subvariant is taking hold in the U.S. Unfortunately, the only sure way to avoid long COVID is not to catch the virus in the first place.”

“Moderna Says Its COVID-19 Vaccine Performs as Well in Children as It Does in Adults” CNN (March 23, 2022) – “Moderna announced interim results of its Covid-19 vaccine for children younger than 6 on Wednesday. The company said two 25-microgram doses of its Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 6 months through 5 years old provided a similar immune response to two 100-microgram doses for adults ages 18 to 25, indicating that the benefit conferred to young adults is also conferred to young children. The two doses of vaccine are given to children 28 days apart.”

“9 Million Children to Be Vaccinated against Polio in Africa” Huffington Post (March 22, 2022) – “A drive to vaccinate more than 9 million children against polio has been launched this week in four countries in southern and eastern Africa after an outbreak was confirmed in Malawi. The urgent vaccination campaign has started in Malawi where drops of the inoculation are being placed in the mouths of children across the country, including in the capital, Lilongwe, and the country’s largest city, Blantyre.”

“Things to Know About Shingles Vaccination for Immunocompromised Adults 19 Years and Older” Medscape (March 22, 2022) – “In January 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated recommendations for shingles (herpes zoster) vaccination to include people 19 years and older who are or will be immunocompromised. This will enable providers to vaccinate immunocompromised patients against shingles at a time most appropriate for their medical circumstances. Here’s what you should know about the expanded recommendation.”

“COVID Patient Successfully Given Vaccine as Treatment” WebMD (March 22, 2022) – “A man in the U.K. was given a COVID-19 vaccine as treatment after he tested positive for the coronavirus for several months. The vaccine successfully sparked his immune response, marking what is believed to be the first time the shot has been used for treatment instead of prevention. The case study was published in the Journal of Clinical Immunology.”

“Could the COVID-19 Vaccine Become a Yearly Shot? Some Experts Think So” CNN (March 21, 2022) – “Some scientists think we might be rolling up our sleeves each year not just for flu shots but for Covid-19 jabs too. Public health experts aren't quite clear on what the future holds for Covid-19 vaccines––but some say it's looking more and more like these shots could be needed on a yearly basis, similar to how flu shots are recommended each fall.”

“COVID-19 Vaccines Not Tied to Immune-Mediated Neurological Events” Health Day (March 21, 2022) – “No safety signal is observed between COVID-19 vaccines and immune-mediated neurological events, but infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is associated with increased risks for Bell palsy, encephalomyelitis, and Guillain-Barré syndrome, according to a study published online March 16 in The BMJ.”

“Six Important Things to Know About COVID Vaccination in Children” Smithsonian Magazine (March 17, 2022) – “Many parents have been anxiously awaiting the moment that Covid-19 vaccines become authorized for their children, hoping that the shots would provide confidence and security as the kids return to normal activities. Others have been more wary, concerned that rare side effects like myocarditis will outweigh the vaccine’s benefits considering that kids are less likely than adults to experience severe outcomes from the disease. A variety of seemingly-conflicting headlines have added to the confusion about when the vaccines will be ready.” 

“How to Keep New Variants from Emerging and Ending the Pandemic” Newswise (March 16, 2022) – “As mask mandates disappear across the U.S., many are eager to return to pre-pandemic life. But scientists warn against letting down our guard too soon, pointing out that new variants could arise in the months ahead. COVID-19 ‘is smart and contagious,’ said Jasmine Plummer, PhD, assistant professor of Biomedical Sciences at the Cedars-Sinai Center for Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics and associate director of the Applied Genomics, Computation & Translational Core at Cedars-Sinai. ‘But we also know what we have to do to curb this pandemic.’”

“The Forgotten Texas Scientist Who Helped Develop the Polio Vaccine” Texas Monthly (March 15, 2022) – “Northeast Texas–born Byron Bennett was one of four key researchers on the team that created the lifesaving vaccine, but the spotlight shone only on Jonas Salk. It’s easy to forget today, as we battle a different pandemic, but polio terrified Americans throughout the first half of the twentieth century. At the height of the epidemic, in 1952, more than 21,000 people, most of them children, were paralyzed from the disease. More than three thousand Americans died from polio that year. Life during that long-ago outbreak now seems eerily familiar.”

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