Less than one third of healthcare workers have themselves vaccinated against classic influenza. This reluctance is astounding, firstly because vaccination against influenza viruses is considered safe and effective and secondly because it has been proved to prevent nosocomial transmission of disease to patients—provided at least 50% of employees have been vaccinated.

After a vaccination or an infection, the human immune system remembers to keep protecting against invaders it has already encountered, with the aid of specialized B-cells and T-cells. Immunological memory has long been the subject of intense study, but the underlying cellular mechanisms regulating the generation and persistence of long-lived memory T cells remain largely undefined.

An experimental vaccine applied the surface of the skin appears to protect against certain types of ear infections. Scientists from the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, report their findings today at the 109th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Philadelphia.

As vaccines against a virus that infects 100 million people annually reach late-stage clinical trials this year, researchers have developed a test to better predict whether a given vaccine candidate should protect patients from the infection, or in some cases, make it more dangerous, according to an article just published in the journal Clinical and Vaccine Immunology.

A booster vaccination for parents of new babies and other household members may be the most effective way of preventing the fatal form of whooping cough in young infants, say a group of paediatric intensive care doctors on bmj.com today.

A new study by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Vanderbilt University suggests that protecting infants from a common, highly contagious and even deadly disease may be as easy as administering a routine vaccine two weeks earlier than it is typically given.

Vaccine could prevent 2,250 pediatric hospitalizations and 650,000 office visits

Researchers are developing a DNA-based vaccine against the dreaded West Nile virus (WNV), which can be transmitted from animals to humans. The unique feature of this vaccine is that it is also effective after onset of the disease, for it has therapeutic properties.

Doctors have always hoped that scientists might one day create a vaccination that would treat a broad spectrum of maladies. They could only imagine that there might be one vaccine that would protect against, say, 2,500 strains of Salmonella. And what if that same vaccine could help protect the elderly?

Scientists hope a vaccine is on the horizon for tularemia, a fatal disease caused by the pathogen Francisella tularensis, an organism of concern as a potential biological warfare agent. Until recently we knew very little about this bacterium.

New evidence suggests that a booster vaccination against H5N1 avian influenza given years after initial vaccination with a different strain may prove useful in controlling a potential future pandemic. The study is published in the August 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online.

A new study in the journal Psychophysiology reveals that men, but not women, vaccinated in the morning produced a better peak antibody response to both hepatitis A and the influenza strain.