New vaccines against Hib have been successfully tested and utilized in decreasing the burden of disease in a number of developed countries, including the United States, Iceland, Finland and Israel. Some of these vaccines have already been licensed. However, their major drawback is that they are expensive because of conjugation methods used in their production. Now that the safety and efficacy of these Hib vaccines have been well established, researchers have embarked on rendering them less costly but in no way less effective. Lower dose formulations, simpler conjugation methods and new approaches, such as low cost synthetic vaccines, could help solve this problem.
Epidemics can occur in any part of the world.
Vaccination against meningitis could make its control much more effective. Unfortunately, the existing vaccines are not effective in young children. WHO-supported studies in the Gambia have demonstrated that a meningococcal conjugate vaccine is effective against group C but not against group A disease. As part of its efforts to develop a product that will be highly immunogenic and protective for infants of less than two years, the World Health Organization will begin field-testing several new candidate conjugate vaccines in Niger this September. Trials will be carried out in cooperation with three vaccine manufacturers in Europe and the United States.