Monitoring health on a large scale through Big Data or using social networks to modify behaviour and risk factors are two relevant examples of how cutting edge technology may provide new and powerful tools against infectious diseases.
Many public and private agencies and bodies gather data from social networks and search engines to try and identify health emergencies and solve the problem: the most common approach is to analyze the search strings used by Google and the texts of blogs, forums and other pages on the Net.
Food and Drug Administration(FDA). 2014. Guidance for Industry – Internet/Social Media Platforms: Correcting Independent Third-Party Misinformation About Prescription Drugs and Medical Devices.
The CDC pledges “To base all public health decisions on the highest quality scientific data, openly and objectively derived.” But Peter Doshi argues that in the case of influenza vaccinations and their marketing, this is not so.
The report published in March 2015 by Medecins sans frontières speaks out clearly against the “global coalition of inaction” and the “vacuum of leadership” in the Ebola crisis in West Africa. Those who were struggling in the field against a huge and out-of-control emergency, without the necessary resources, list the main causes of such a situation: lack of political will, inexperience, and, sometimes, simply fear.
The beginning of the European Immunization Week, which will be followed in a few days by the World Immunization Week, is a perfect chance to remind the importance of vaccination and immunization programme. Among the several initiatives to keep the attention high on such a topic, one involved even the Lego group. Lego ideas is a website developed by the famous Danish toy company where fans may share ideas and proposals for new Lego set. The website allows everyone to post an idea and to gather support.
The World Immunization Week, which will be held from 24-30 April 2015, will signal a renewed global, regional, and national effort to accelerate action to increase awareness and demand for immunization by communities, and improve vaccination delivery services.
The first meeting of the Asset High Level Policy Forum was held in Bruxelles on March 12. The Forum was intended to bring together selected European policy-makers at regional, national and EU levels, key decision makers in health agencies, the pharmaceutical industry, and civil society organisations, in a unique and interactive dialogue to promote on-going reflection on EU strategic priorities about pandemics.
The debate over measles vaccine is underway in many countries and, in some cases, the discussion came to court. It happened, for instance, in Italy in 2012, when a judge recognized the right to compensation (required by Italian law) for the family of a child vaccinated in 2002 with the trivalent vaccine MPR (measles-mumps-rubella) who were later diagnosed with autism. During the debate, the consultant of the family presented the research of the English physician Andrew Wakefield.
According to the last news from FluNews Europe, the current wave of influenza is causing a higher level of mortality among elderly people compared to the four previous seasons. In fact, an excess of all-cause mortality among the elderly (aged ≥65 years), concomitant with increased influenza activity and the predominance of A(H3N2) viruses, has been observed in recent weeks in Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (England, Scotland and Wales).
