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British Scientists Create Life-Saving Vaccines
British scientists have developed a new technology
that could deliver cheaper, life-saving vaccines
without refrigeration to millions of children in
remote areas of the world.
Each year up to 50 percent of vaccines are ruined because
of temperature damage and about two million children die from
vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles.
The stable-liquid vaccine technology devised by researchers
at Cambridge Biostability Ltd (CBL) eliminates the need for
costly refrigeration.
"It could revolutionize how we deliver vaccines in the
developing world," said Dr Stewart Tyson, of Britain's
Department for International Development which will provide
950,000 pounds ($1.7 million) for the project.
"This technology offers the potential to deliver vaccines
outside the cold chain," he told reporters.
Currently, vaccines need to be refrigerated all the time
to keep them potent. The cold chain adds an estimated cost
of $200-$300 million each year, according to the World Health
Organization.
Removing the cold chain alone would enable the vaccination
of an extra 10 million children within existing budgets.
The new technology involves drying the vaccine molecules
and embedding them in tiny sugar beads or glass spheres.
Each sphere is inert and absolutely stable without
the need for refrigeration.
The process is based on a natural process that enables some
plants to remain in a desiccated state for hundreds of years
and then return to life.
The spheres are suspended in stable, injectable liquids and
will not release the vaccines until they are dissolved in
the body following injection.
Public health experts estimate that almost one third of the
132 million children born each year are not reached by routine
vaccination.
Melting Alps
Switzerland's glaciers are melting faster than
expected, shrinking by as much as one-fifth of
their size over the 1985-2000 period alone, say
scientists at Zurich University.
Scientist Frank Paul states that while a pattern of advancing
and retreating glaciers was normal, temperature increases
over the 1990s have stripped away swathes of ice which are
needed to retain water, and in turn support plant and animal
life in the mountains.
Last year's European summer heatwave, which caused
deaths and droughts across the continent, capped
more than a decade of rapid melting.
Mountainous regions will become more hazardous, Paul said,
because the heavy summer thunderstorms symptomatic of climate
change will fall on craggy mountainsides rather than insulating
layers of snow and ice, likely causing more flash floods.
Many scientists blame rising global temperatures on the greenhouse
effect, in which certain gases in the atmosphere, including
man-made pollutants, trap heat.
The changes could also impact tourism, a crucial pillar
of the Swiss economy, as the country's scenic glacial valleys
become barren and rocky. Summer glacier skiing -- a popular
trend particularly over recent years -- could become unfeasible,
while the winter ski season shrinks along with the snow line.
"The major glaciers will probably be OK for the next
10, 20 years or so, but the real change is in the smaller,
inaccessible ones and we can already see the impact," said
Paul.
Italians React Angrily to Government Proposals to Tax Mobile Phone Text Messages.
With 27 billion text messages sent by Italy's residents
last year, even a small surtax could raise a
fortune. But Italians - who own more mobile phones
and send more text messages per head of population
than any other nation - are unlikely to support
it. Overall, about 10,000 messages are sent from
Italian mobile phones every second of every day.
The plan was put forward as a way to help Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi fulfil election promises
to cut taxes, with calculations that a tax of
just over one American cent on every text message
would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars.
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