ISV President’s Message
Linda S. Klavinskis, PhD (ISV President, 2024-2025)
Professor of Viral Immunology, Department of Infectious Diseases, King’s College London.
It is an honour and privilege to serve as President of the ISV, an association that brings together talented scientists from across the globe at all stages of their careers to exchange knowledge, sparks new ideas and inspires solutions to the most challenging human, animal, and One Health problems amenable to vaccine and immunotherapeutic interventions.
I would like to thank Dr Denise Doolan, the outgoing ISV President for her leadership during her term and congratulate Ted Gibson on assuming the position of Director of ISV Operations.
I have been an active member of the ISV for almost a decade, contributing to the ISV’s activities as Board member (since 2018), General Secretary (2019-2020), Congress and webinar co-chair (2019, 2020, 2021, 2023) and the Awards and Prize committee chair (since 2023). I have seen first-hand the amazing work our members tirelessly undertake to support the ISV through its committees, webinars, conferences and more, behind-the-scenes. Thank you to those of you who are involved for this remarkable service. Last year, it was my pleasure to establish a new program to honour those who have made such substantial contributions to the ISV. Congratulations to our 2023 honouree’s, Drs Shan Lu, and Margaret Liu for your outstanding altruism and service to ISV. Going forward, we have a lot to do as we expand our activities. I welcome members (at all stages of their careers) to come forward and join the work of our committees by emailing me at President@isv-online.org. Your ideas, comments and participation are intrinsic to shaping the ISV’s programs and core mission: to promote knowledge exchange, engage with the public to explain the basic tenets and importance of vaccines, connect scientists across the broad disciplines of vaccine sciences and importantly support the next generation of vaccine scientists. Participation is an excellent way for early career scientists to enhance your visibility, network, and benefit from working with more senior vaccinologists. Read more…
LATEST NEWS
The great cholera vaccine shortage.
Talha Burki The Lancet Volume 403, Issue 10430, 9–15 March 2024, Pages 891-892
As cholera continues to cause large outbreaks, the global stockpile of the oral cholera vaccine is still entirely depleted. Talha Burki reports. 2022 was a bad year for cholera. The disease returned to Syria after an absence of 15 years and crossed the border into Lebanon, where it had not been detected since 1993. A huge outbreak took hold in Malawi after the country was hit by two tropical storms. Haiti had harboured hopes of eliminating cholera; instead, it experienced a resurgence of the disease. In all, 472 697 cases of cholera and 2349 deaths were reported to WHO. 2023 was even worse. Preliminary figures for the year place the number of cases of cholera or acute watery diarrhoea in the region of 708 000, with more than 4300 deaths. Whether the upward trend will continue in 2024 remains to be seen. The early indications are troubling; January saw 40 900 cases and 775 deaths in 17 countries. And one thing is certain: there will not be enough vaccine to meet the demand.
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