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Since pandemic declaration, the vulnerability of countries with serious economic challenges and limited health resources became evident. This vulnerability has been put to the test once again with the appearance of Omicron as another variant of concern. Although great efforts have been made to develop effective and safe vaccines, they need to be made available globally at an affordable price to all governments and distributed equitably to maximize immediate and long-term efforts to contain the virus and advance global public health. Potential sources of unfair allocation of COVID-19 vaccines are not hard to find. The COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX) has so far shipped over 406 million COVID-19 vaccines to 144 eligible participants. From that batches, about 115 million doses (28%) were allocated to 49 African countries. If proactive measures are not undertaken, Nigeria, pointed here as a case study, and Sub-Saharan Africa countries may not be self-reliant for COVID-19 vaccines. This report raises a discussion on the difficulties in accessing vaccines and diagnostics in sub-Saharan Africa, compared to high- and middle-income countries. Now more than ever, it is crucial to note that there is no overcoming a pandemic without coordinated action for actions that go beyond borders. The coordinated effort to raise vaccination rates in the African continent is not a humanitarian action aimed exclusively at Africa, but more than that, it is an effort for the benefit of global public health.

Worldwide Schistosomiasis mansoni continues to be a serious public health problem. Over the past decades, control programmes have made remarkable progress in reducing S. mansoni infections to a relatively low level in Brazil and African countries. Endemic regions are currently circumscribed in certain core areas where reinfection and repeated chemotherapy are frequent and, consequently, are related to residents with low parasite load. At present, diagnosis is predominately a key step for final disease control although low endemicity area residents are hardly detected by most of the available assays. In this paper, we review the current status and efforts made aiming at the improvement of diagnostic tools for S. mansoni in low endemicity infections. The establishment of diagnostic assays—simple, affordable, sensitive, and specific for field diagnosis of S. mansoni—is essential and should be given high priority.

A leishmaniose visceral é uma enfermidade crônica que pode atingir 98% de mortalidade em humanos não tratados. Pela sua gravidade e alta prevalência, a vacinação é um meio importante de proteção. Alguns tipos de vacinas vêm sendo testados, dentre eles, as vacinas de antígeno particulado e a de DNA. Estas vacinas demonstraram a capacidade de reduzir a carga parasitária no fígado e no baço em modelo murino e induzir a produção de IFN- , com indução de uma resposta celular prolongada, em alguns casos. No nosso estudo, camundongos BALB/c foram vacinados com três doses de uma vacina subcutânea contendo 100 μg de antígeno particulado de L. chagasi, L. braziliensis ou L. amazonensis e 50 μg de saponina como adjuvante, associada ou não a uma vacina intramuscular, em duas doses, com 100 μg de pCI-neop36( LACK). Esta vacina de DNA continha um gene que codifica a proteína LACK (homóloga de Leishmania de receptores de proteína kinase C ativada), uma proteína de 36 kDa, conservada nas várias espécies e formas do ciclo de vida da Leishmania. Nos dois protocolos de vacinação, os camundongos foram desafiados 4 ou 12 semanas após a administração da vacina com 1 x 107 formas promastigotas de L. chagasi e sacrificados 5 semanas após o desafio para análise da capacidade protetora das vacinas, no fígado e no baço, e de indução da produção de IFN- e IL-4 pelos esplenócitos. Os dados mostraram que a vacina pCI-neo-p36(LACK) associada à vacina de antígeno particulado de L. chagasi induziu maior grau de proteção que a vacina de antígeno particulado administrada isoladamente, especialmente no fígado quando o desafio foi feito 4 semanas após a vacinação. Além disso, a vacina de antígeno de L. amazonensis, quando associada ou não a vacina pCI-neo-p36(LACK), induziu uma maior redução da carga parasitária do que a de L. braziliensis, no entanto nenhuma destas duas vacinas induziu proteção maior que a vacina de antígeno de L. chagasi. As vacinas induziram a produção significativa de IFN-g mas não de IL-4 que, em alguns casos, foi suprimida. Apesar da capacidade da associação das vacinas em aumentar a proteção contra o parasito, problemas relacionados com o uso de vacinas de DNA precisam ser melhor compreendidos. American visceral leishmaniasis is a chronic disease that can reach 98% of human mortality when not treated. Due to its severity and high incidence, vaccination has become an important approach to protection. Several vaccines have been tested, amongst then, freeze-thawed antigen and DNA vaccines. These two vaccines have demonstrated the capacity to reduce the parasite burden in liver and spleen in murine model and to induce the production of IFN- , with the induction of a long-term cellular immunity in some cases. In our study, BALB/c mice were vaccinated with a three doses subcutaneous vaccine containing 100 μg of L. chagasi, L. braziliensis or L. amazonensis freeze-thawed antigen with 50 μg of saponin as an adjuvant, associated or not with an intramuscular one, in two doses, with 100 μg of pCI-neo-p36(LACK). This DNA vaccine was constituted of LACK (Leishmania homologue of receptors for activated C kinase) expression gene, a 36 kDa protein highly conserved in all species and life cycle stages of Leishmania. In the two vaccines protocols, mice were challenged intravenously with 1 x 107 L. chagasi promastigotes 4 or 12 weeks after booster and sacrified 5 weeks after challenge for the analysis of the vaccines protective capacity in liver and spleen and the measure of the production of IFN-g and IL-4 by splenocytes. Data showed that the pCI-neo-p36(LACK) associated to L. chagasi freeze-thawed antigen induced a higher protection than the freeze-thawed antigen alone, specially in liver when the challenge was performed 4 weeks after booster. In addiction, L. amazonensis vaccine induced a greater reduction in parasite burden than L. braziliensis. The vaccines induced a significant production of IFN-g but not of IL-4, that was suppressed is some cases. Despite the showed capability of the vaccines association in increase the protection against the parasite, problems with the use of DNA vaccines must be reviewed.

Introduction: Vaccines are essential for the prevention and control of several diseases, indeed, monitoring the immune response generated by vaccines is crucial. The immune response generated by vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 in children and adolescents is not well defined regarding to the intensity and medium to long-term duration of a protective immune response, which may point out the need of booster doses and might support the decisions in public health., Objective: The study aims to evaluate the immunogenicity and safety of inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (CoronaVac) in a two-dose primary protocol in children and adolescent aging from 3 to 17 years old in Brazil., Methods: Participants were invited to participate in the research at two public healthcare centers located in Serrana (São Paulo) and Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais), Brazil. Participants underwent medical interviews to gather their medical history, including COVID-19 history and medical records. Physical exams were conducted, including weight, blood pressure, temperature, and pulse rate measurements. Blood samples were obtained from the participants before vaccination, 1 month after the first dose, and 1, 3, and 6 months after the second dose and were followed by a virtual platform for monitoring post-vaccination reactions and symptoms of COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 genome from Swab samples of COVID-19 positive individuals were sequenced by NGS. Total antibodies were measured by ELISA and neutralizing antibodies to B.1 lineage and Omicron variant (BA.1) quantified by PRNT and VNT. The cellular immune response was evaluated by flow cytometry by the quantification of systemic soluble immune mediators., Results: The follow-up of 640 participants showed that the CoronaVac vaccine (Sinovac/Butantan Institute) was able to significantly induce the production of total IgG antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 and the production of neutralizing antibodies to B.1 lineage and Omicron variant. In addition, a robust cellular immune response was observed with wide release of pro-inflammatory and regulatory mediators in the early post-immunization moments. Adverse events recorded so far have been mild and transient except for seven serious adverse events reported on VigiMed., Conclusions: The results indicate a robust and sustained immune response induced by the CoronaVac vaccine in children and adolescents up to six months, providing evidences to support the safety and immunogenicity of this effective immunizer., Competing Interests: MLN has received research grants from Instituto Butantan, Janssen Vaccines and Prevention B.V., Medicago R&D Inc, and Pfizer/BioNTech SE. RFQG has received grants from Instituto Butantan.Additional Declarations: No competing interests reported.