Jan 26, 2022 | Science & Technology
By Deborah Fuller The two most successful coronavirus vaccines developed in the U.S. – the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines – are both mRNA vaccines. The idea of using genetic material to produce an immune response has opened up a world of research and potential medical...
Jan 12, 2022 | Politics & Society
COVID-19 has a new variant. Omicron has drastically increased cases worldwide and has governments contemplating new measures, including lockdowns and moving schools back online. The lack of global vaccinations ode partially to uneven distribution to poorer nations and...
Sep 15, 2021 | Business & Economics, Politics & Society
As Aotearoa rolls out its Covid vaccine response, although uptake is high, there remains a few who are either vaccine-hesitant or refuse to want the vaccine. Why are people so vaccine-hesitant? In this talk, Michael Lee outlines the key reasons behind the...
Sep 6, 2021 | Science & Technology
By Helen Petousis-Harris Health risks from contracting Covid-19 far outweigh the rare vaccine side effect linked to the woman who died in New Zealand last week. Helen Petousis-Harris explains. After hundreds of millions of Covid-19 vaccination doses given worldwide,...
Jun 23, 2021 | Science & Technology
By Victor Dieriks Dr Victor Dieriks draws attention to Covid’s potential risks of long-term, life-changing neuropsychiatric disorders should we not run a successful vaccination campaign. New evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic paints a grim picture of the...
May 5, 2021 | Politics & Society
By Boaventura De Sousa Santos As NGOs, UN agencies and the governments of less affluent states call for the suspension of patents, the stakes could not be higher. The consensus is that the current pandemic will be with us for a long time to come. We will enter a...
Apr 26, 2021 | Science & Technology
By Helen Petousis-Harris If the risk is as small, as it currently appears to be, then we need to ask ourselves if it is worth using these vaccines and if so, in whom. What has happened? Recently the vaccine safety watch dogs in Europe noted reports of unusual types of...
Oct 21, 2020 | Science & Technology
As COVID-19 cases continue to rise, the world is racing to create a viable vaccine to help control the spread of the virus. Is New Zealand ready for a vaccine? How will it be rolled out? And how effective will it be? Jemima Huston spoke to University of Otago...
Apr 7, 2020 | Science & Technology
By Ignacio López-Goñi Studies of numerous antiviral treatments and potential vaccines are already underway. Never has science advanced so much in such a short period of time to combat an epidemic. Just three months after China first notified the World Health...
Mar 12, 2019 | Science & Technology
By Katie L. Flanagan For years a myth has been propagated that the MMR vaccine causes autism. However, new research has confirmed the link does not exist. Last week, a Danish study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine gave considerable weight to the existing...