Travel Vaccine Breaking News

CancerVAX, Inc. announced today that it recently launched a funding round of up to $10 million to empower the Utah-based Company to continue working on its breakthrough cancer treatments.

CancerVax CEO Ryan Davies said in a June 14, 2023, press release, “We’re working with a research team at UCLA to help us develop these treatments. We’ve raised $2 million of seed funding thus far and are using the StartEngine platform to raise an additional $10 million to further the development of these novel cancer therapies.”

CancerVAX recently announced that its UCLA research team had made positive progress towards developing a treatment for Ewing sarcoma, a deadly form of cancer.

Ewing sarcoma is an aggressive bone and soft-tissue cancer with limited chances of cure, more prevalent in adolescents and young adults.

Current therapies for Ewing sarcoma have reached a plateau over the last several decades, and there is an urgent need for improved outcomes.

Approaches that target chemotherapy-resistant tumors, especially in metastatic and/or microscopic residual disease, would be revolutionary, wrote CancerVAX on June 12, 2023.

 Valneva SE today announces that the Company’s pivotal Phase 3 data for its single-shot chikungunya vaccine candidate, VLA1553, have been published in The Lancet.

This article says the strong immune response and the generation of seroprotective titres in almost all vaccinated participants suggests that VLA1553 is an excellent candidate for preventing disease caused by the chikungunya virus.

VLA1553 demonstrated a very high seroresponse rate of 98.9% in participants 28 days after receiving the single administration, and 96% of participants maintained seroresponse six months after vaccination.

VLA1553 is currently the only chikungunya vaccine candidate worldwide for which regulatory review processes are underway. It has been designed by deleting a part of the chikungunya virus genome.

Juan Carlos Jaramillo, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Valneva, commented in a press release on June 13, 2023, “We are pleased that more detailed results on our single-shot chikungunya vaccine candidate are now available to the scientific and broader public health communities.”

Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne viral disease caused by the chikungunya virus (CHIKV), a Togaviridae virus transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. The infection leads to symptomatic disease in 72-92% of humans after four to seven days following the mosquito bite.

While mortality with CHIKV is low, morbidity is high. Clinical symptoms include acute onset of fever, debilitating joint and muscle pain, headache, nausea, rash, and chronic arthralgia.

The high-risk areas of infection for travelers are places where chikungunya virus-carrying mosquitos are endemic, including the Americas, parts of Africa, and Southeast Asia, and the virus has spread to more than 110 countries.

The Pan American Health Organization recently confirmed chikungunya cases in the Americas region reached over 210,000 in the first months of 2023. And there were about 51 related fatalities, representing a four-fold increase compared to 2022. 

The U.S. Department of State today reissued its Level 1, Exercise Normal Precautions when visiting the Argentine Republic in 2023.

Published on June 12, 2023, this travel advisory is the highest rank issued by the State Department, indicating Argentina is a safe country to visit.

Prior to the recent pandemic, Argentina, which borders five different countries, and the Atlantic Ocean recorded a total of seven million tourists in 2019, ranking this scenic country 28th in the world.

To honor 200 years of diplomatic relations between the United States and Argentina, aircrew members from the Georgia Air National Guard and the Argentine Air Force made history when they jointly flew a C-130 Hercules aircraft to Argentina for use by the Argentine Air Force.

The Argentine Air Force said it plans to use the aircraft for disaster relief efforts and to support missions to Antarctica.

“This is the latest example of how our military cooperation has been an integral part of our strong friendship across 200 years of relations,” U.S. Ambassador Marc R. Stanley said in a press release on June 5, 2023.

If you decide to travel to Argentina, enroll in the Smart Traveler Program to receive alerts in case of an emergency.

The authorities in Argentina set and enforce entry rules. If you’re unsure how these requirements apply to you, contact the local embassy or consulate.

The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires is located at Av. Colombia 4300, (C1425GMN) Buenos Aires. U.S. citizens with emergencies while visiting Argentina can call: +(54-11) 5777-4354.

From a health perspective, the U.S. CDC included Argentina in its April 2023 advisory regarding dengue fever outbreaks in the region.

Argentina recently authorized the QDENGA® dengue vaccine for use.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today published a Briefing Document regarding the selection of strain(s) to be included in the Periodic Updated COVID-19 Vaccines for the 2023-2024 vaccination campaign.

The FDA confirmed that the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) will meet in an open session on June 15, 2023, to discuss and recommend COVID-19 vaccine selection.

As noted in section 3.2, XBB sublineages accounted for about 95% of the circulating virus variants in the U.S. by early June 2023.

The FDA wrote the totality of available evidence suggests that a monovalent XBB-lineage vaccine is warranted.

And given the current state of naturally acquired, vaccine-induced, and hybrid (combined natural infection in the setting of at least one COVID-19 vaccination) immunity in the U.S. population, FDA suggested that each of the authorized bivalent vaccines moves to a single dose for most individuals, with additional doses for the very young, those 65 years and older, and individuals with certain kinds of immunocompromise.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently reported passenger screening at airports throughout the U.S. has been similar to 2019.

As of June 8, 2023, the TSA successfully screened over 2.2 million travelers at 200 airports each day this month.

Furthermore, the TSA reported its PreCheck® services to continue empowering an expedited screening process.

In May 2023, 89% of TSA PreCheck® passengers waited less than 5 minutes. And children 17 and under can join adults when TSA PreCheck appears on the child’s boarding pass.

And air travelers with disabilities with TSA PreCheck® on their boarding passes will receive on-person screening when screened in a standard lane for any reason. 

The Association of Hotels and Tourism of the Dominican Republic (Asonahores) today announced it disagrees with the U.S. Department of State's recent Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution travel advisory.

Issued on June 6, 2023, this State Department travel advisory highlights an 'alleged increase in crime.'

According to Dominican Today reporting on June 10, 2023, there has been no evidence in recent months of any Dominican Republic that would motivate such action by the State Department.

'For our association, this alert comes as a surprise since the Dominican Republic continues to be one of the safest tourist destinations in the entire (Caribbean) region, considering the number of events per 100,000 foreign visitors.'

The Dominican Republic is the second largest and most diverse Caribbean country, located just two hours south of Miami, Florida.

The Dominican Republic reported over 621,000 visitors in May 2023, an 18% increase over May 2019.

CountryReports.org says ...Although influenced by North American values, the Dominican Republic maintains the Spanish tradition of familial solidarity.

Furthermore, the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic has not issued a local security alert regarding civil unrest.

And the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not featured any disease outbreaks on the eastern end of Hispaniola.

However, there is a Caribbean region-wide dengue alert.

Note: Article updated on June 12, 2023, to include visitor reference data and link.

The state’s Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) recently confirmed the first moose to be diagnosed with rabies in Alaska.

On June 2, 2023, a moose was detected in and around the community of Teller, Alaska, and acting aggressively toward people. The moose was unbalanced, stumbling, drooling profusely, and had bare patches of skin.

ADF&G staff in Nome consulted with wildlife veterinarian Dr. Kimberlee Beckmen and dispatched the animal that afternoon due to its aggressive behavior and signs suggestive of rabies disease. 

Rabies virus in the brain was detected on June 5, 2023, by the Alaska State Virology Laboratory.

On June 6, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention further confirmed the virus was an Arctic Fox rabies variant. This is the same variant circulating in red foxes during the outbreak in the Nome/Seward Peninsula and North Slope arctic foxes this past winter, suggesting the moose contracted the virus from a fox.

Due to this new case, ADF&G plans to increase rabies surveillance by testing all brain samples from wild mammals found dead or euthanized from regions with enzootic fox rabies, including Western Alaska, when feasible.

Due to the largely solitary nature of moose, it is doubtful that any rabies outbreak will occur in the moose population, but isolated cases such as this one occur rarely.

Moose that are killed by hunters on the Seward Peninsula that show normal behavior and no signs of any abnormality or illness should still be considered safe to consume, says ADF&G.

Rabies is a zoonotic infection found in more than 150 countries and territories, say the World Health Organization (WHO). Unfortunately, almost 60,000 people worldwide die from rabies annually. 

According to the WHO, rabies vaccination can prevent infections before and after exposure to the rabies virus.

On May 6, 2022, the U.S. CDC published: Using a Modified Preexposure Prophylaxis Vaccination Schedule to Prevent Human Rabies.