Top vaccine news from 2022: COVID-19 boosters, malaria, Ebola and more
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Updated COVID-19 shots, including bivalent boosters, dominated vaccine news in 2022, but good news also came for vaccines against malaria, Ebola and cancer.
Vaccines made news in other ways. Many people planned to skip influenza vaccines, record numbers of children missed measles vaccines globally, and a case of vaccine-derived polio in New York raised concerns of potential poliovirus spread.
Below are some of the vaccine-related stories you may have missed this year.
Fewer than half of US adults planned to get flu vaccine despite warnings of a severe season
After a mild 2021-2022 influenza season, a survey showed 49% of people in the U.S. were not planning to be vaccinated, despite widespread concern for a “tripledemic” in the fall. Read more.
Record 40 million children missed measles vaccine dose last year, CDC and WHO say
Measles vaccine coverage in 2021 reached its lowest level since 2008 as 25 million children missed their first vaccine dose and 14.7 million missed their second dose, amid 9 million cases of measles and 128,000 deaths globally. Read more.
Studies indicate that bivalent boosters reduce risk for severe COVID-19
Findings from two real-world studies that included more than 93,000 people in the United States found the bivalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccines reduced risk for medically attended disease compared with those without vaccination or previous monovalent vaccination. Read more.
FDA grants priority review for Pfizer’s RSV vaccine candidate for older adults
Amid a historically early respiratory syncytial virus season, the FDA granted a priority review for RSVpreF following trial results announced earlier this year that showed the vaccine was 85.7% effective against severe disease in adults aged 60 and older. Read more.
mRNA cancer vaccine combined with Keytruda promising in adjuvant treatment of melanoma
An investigational personalized messenger RNA cancer vaccine, along with Keytruda, for the first time showed clinical benefit over Keytruda alone, according to Moderna and Merck, makers of the two drugs. Read more.
CDC expands wastewater testing for poliovirus
The CDC in November announced it would expand wastewater testing for polio in several jurisdictions, including Michigan and Philadelphia, after a case of vaccine-derived polio was confirmed in New York and the virus was detected in wastewater in several of the state’s counties. Read more.
Ebola vaccines spur lasting immunity in children and adults, trials show
Two randomized, placebo-controlled trials of three Ebola vaccine regimens demonstrated they were safe and spur antibodies, although researchers could not assess efficacy because none of the participants contracted the virus. Read more.
Racial disparities exist in flu vaccination rates among nursing home residents
A retrospective cohort study that included more than 14 million short-stay and long-stay U.S. nursing home residents over 7 years found wide geographic variation in influenza vaccination between Hispanic white and Hispanic residents. Read more.
US allows fractional dosing of monkeypox vaccine to extend supply
In August, after officials said the country’s supply of the Jynneos vaccine could not keep pace with the U.S. mpox outbreak, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization to draw up to five doses from existing one-dose vials. Read more.
Malaria vaccine continues to show promise
Data published in September showed that a booster shot given to children 1 year after they received an initial three-dose primary series of the vaccine, R21/Matrix-M, continued to meet WHO’s primary 75% efficacy goal. Read more.
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