freelance science journalist and author
From The Saturday Paper, 4 September 2023: On May 5 this year, World Health Organization director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the pandemic emergency downgraded from an acute global disaster into a more chronic, long-term affliction. Covid-19 became another in the long line of deadly pathogens that have seared their way into history, then faded … Continue reading The science on Covid boosters
From Nature, 30 June 2021: Ever since 1796, when English scientist and physician Edward Jenner successfully inoculated an eight-year-old boy with cowpox to protect him from smallpox, vaccines have been a key tool for preventing disease. From smallpox to polio, diphtheria to COVID-19, vaccines have prevented more deaths from infectious disease than any other medical … Continue reading How nanotechnology can flick the immunity switch
From The Medical Republic, 8 April 2020: “I’m one of those public health people who love silver bullets.” As editor-in-chief of BMJ Global Health, and a health systems expert at the University of Sydney, Dr Seye Abimbola is well acquainted with the damage that SARS-CoV-2 has wrought around the world. So he’s understandably excited about … Continue reading So we have vaccines. What happens now?
From Monash magazine, October 2014: One of the big challenges facing health officials trying to supply, and use, vaccines in remote regions where refrigeration is either limited, unreliable or non-existent is that vital vaccines are sensitive to hot conditions. Too often vaccines fail to provide the necessary immune protection because the refrigerated supply chain that … Continue reading Cool cubes
From Pathway magazine, the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia, Winter 2008: Being a baby one hundred years ago was a pretty dicey affair. Up to one in three would not live to see their first birthday, instead falling victim to any one of a long list of diseases including smallpox, diphtheria, measles, tetanus and … Continue reading The vaccine revolution
