Even with universal vaccination for newborns as the standard, universal testing for hepatitis B during pregnancy remained an important part of prenatal care in the United States for decades. The ACIP decision puts even more emphasis on that practice, said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

“It places a spotlight on testing,” he said. “Testing for hepatitis B virus is currently a standard part of prenatal care. It’s recommended to be tested in the first trimester or at the earliest first prenatal visit to get that answer as soon as possible. If a woman doesn’t have any prenatal care, then it’s often tested at delivery.” Read Full Article…

“The idea is that if you increase immunologic control of virus, then you might be able to prevent or slow viral rebound after you stop antiretroviral therapy,” said Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He led the primate study. His lab is also running a clinical trial testing combinations of immunotherapy in people, and expects to report results next year.

Barouch noted that because of the lack of control group, it was not conclusive that the rebound was slower in the six people in the San Francisco study. But he said what was most intriguing to him was that the researchers found that those patients who appeared to partially control the virus had an early response in a specific population of T cells. Read Full Article

“Every winter is a different flu season,” said Barouch. “Some seasons are more severe than others, and in some seasons the vaccines are more effective. It is largely driven by mutations that occur every year in flu.” Those gradual changes, known as antigenic drift, can make vaccines less effective at preventing infection and contribute to a more severe flu season.

“The impact of those mutations is still being studied, so we do not know for sure,” Barouch said. “But it is likely that those mutations will result in partial evasion of the current vaccine and a more rapid spread.” Read Full Article…

“The difference this year is that there’s not an explicit recommendation by the federal government to get the booster,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

“This fall, the CDC has not explicitly recommended the Covid-19 vaccine but has made it available to everybody 6 months and older in a process called shared-decision making, which means that people are supposed to talk to a health care provider about the risks and benefits,” he said.

“The Covid-19 vaccines do a better job at preventing severe disease than they do preventing mild infection, and so people at higher risk of severe disease benefit the most from the boosters,” Barouch said. Read Full Article…