Vaccines: preventing disease and protecting health

BOOK REVIEW^*

Pan American Health Organization

Regional Office of the, World Health Organization, 525 23^rd Street NW, Washington, DC 20037 - U.S.A., Tel. [phone]

QUADROS, C.A., ed. - Vaccines: preventing disease and protecting health. Washington, Pan American Health Organization, 2004. 398p. illus. (Scientific and Technical Publication No. 596). ISBN 92 75 11596 6

Vaccines: Preventing Disease and Protecting Health celebrates the various ways vaccines have played a role in improving the health of the world's populations. In early sections, the book relates successful efforts to fight diseases with vaccines, including the eradication of polio from the Americas and the potential contribution of new measles vaccine formulations to reducing measles mortality worldwide. It also looks at the challenges posed in using vaccines to cope with emerging and re-emerging diseases, such as HIV/AIDS and bioterrorism.

In subsequent sections, the authors examine innovative efforts underway to test the efficacy of vaccines against diseases such as meningococcal infection in Africa, Haemophilus influenza type b, varicella, and hepatitis A, and look at efforts to develop a new generation of vaccines against cholera and typhoid, shigella, and Helicobacter pylori. The advances in influenza vaccine development and hepatitis C are also presented.

The book includes sections on the quest for vaccines against tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, dengue, malaria, and hookworm.

New concepts for vaccine development, adjuvants and delivery systems such as maternal immunization, DNA vaccines, and oral vaccines derived from transgenic plants are also discussed. Later sections deal with the use of vaccines against potential bioterrorism attacks, with a particular emphasis on smallpox and anthrax. Regulatory and safety issues related to vaccines are also presented from the various perspectives of the public sector, the pharmaceutical industry, and the vaccine consumer. The final chapter highlights the ongoing challenges of vaccine development, disease prevention, internal and external financing and sustainability of immunization programs, and the impact of health sector reform on these issues.

The roster of authors reads like a "Who's Who" in public health and in vaccine development and use. They are breaking new ground in vaccines and immunization programs, bringing the promise of health to the world's populations. Dr. Ciro de A. Quadros, Director of International Programs at the Albert B. Sabin Institute and Former Director of the Pan American Health Organization's Division of Vaccines and Immunization, ably edited the book and made valuable contributions to it.

This title can be ordered through: http://publications.paho.org; [e-mail]

*

This book is available at the Library of the Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  26 July 2004
• Date of issue
  June 2004