COVID19 News

As parents prepare to send their children back to school in August 2025, many are concerned about the under-vaccination rate in their country.
According to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), 1.4 million children in the Americas did not receive a single dose of the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTP)-containing vaccine, marking an increase in so-called “zero-dose” children.

Over many decades, vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks have occurred in low- and middle-income countries, necessitating emergency response immunization programs to save lives and reduce the costs associated with these outbreaks.
Estimates from the Global Burden of Disease indicate that between 2015 and 2019, around two million deaths per year were attributable to vaccine-preventable diseases.

With the acceleration of Chikungunya outbreaks being reported in Europe during the spring of 2025, older Europeans now have two approved vaccines to choose from before visiting an at-risk area this summer.
As of July 11, 2025, Valneva SE announced that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) will lift the temporary restriction on vaccinating people aged 65 years and above after concluding a thorough review of Valneva's single-dose Chikungunya vaccine IXCHIQ® by the EMA's safety committee.

Researchers from the University of Florida's Emerging Pathogens Institute (EPI) and Texas A&M University recently discovered that local kissing bugs in Florida are carrying the parasite that causes Chagas disease, which can be fatal to humans.
This ten-year study, published on July 7, 2025, in the Public Library of Science Neglected Tropical Diseases, involved the collection of over 300 kissing bugs from 23 counties across Florida.
Interestingly, more than one-third of the bugs were found in people's homes.

Since the beginning of the Zika virus epidemic in 2014, much has been learned about the effects of antenatal exposure to this severe, mosquito-transmitted virus.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Zika virus infection during pregnancy poses severe risks to the fetus, ranging from congenital Zika syndrome, microcephaly, to milder neurodevelopmental issues.
Congenital Zika syndrome is characterized by a variety of alterations that can impact cognitive, language, and motor development.