Author Interviews, CDC, Infections / 20.05.2024
NIH Study Suggests Prion Disease Unlikely to Spread from Deer to Humans
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Cathryn Haigh, Ph.D.
Chief Prion Cell Biology Unit
Laboratory of Neurological Infections and Immunity
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Division of Intramural Research, Rocky Mountain Laboratories
National Institutes of Health
Hamilton, MT 59840
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study, ie what are prions/prion-related diseases? Where are prions found?
Response: Prion diseases are infectious neurodegenerative diseases of humans and animals. In humans these diseases often manifest as rapidly progressing dementias but are rarely caused by a known exposure to the infectious agents (prions). More commonly they are sporadic (no known cause) or hereditary.
One form of human disease is believed to have arisen from eating beef contaminated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (as known as mad cow disease). This has resulted in concerns that chronic wasting disease (CWD), a prion disease affecting deer, elk and moose, might also have the potential to cross the species barrier and cause disease in humans. To date, transmissions of CWD prions to cynomolgus macaques have been negative, a good sign that crossing the species barrier would not be easy, but macaques are not human so we wanted to test whether CWD could infect human brain tissue.
To do this we used a human cerebral organoid model (mini human brain tissues grown from skin cells in a laboratory) and directly exposed the organoids to prions from the brains of animals that had died of CWD.
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Kathryn M. Edwards, M.D.
Sarah H. Sell and Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in Pediatrics
Professor of Pediatrics
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Dr. Edwards discusses the statement from the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) regarding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new data on child vaccine rates across the United States.
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: To monitor the uptake of vaccines the CDC conducts a National Immunization Survey each year. This survey is conducted by random-digit dialing (cell phones or landlines) of parents and guardians of children 19-35 months of age. The interviewers ask the families who provides the vaccines for their children and if these providers can be contacted to inquire about the immunizations received. The overall response rate to the telephone survey was 26% and immunization records were provided on 54% of the children where permission was granted. Overall 15, 333 children had their immunization records reviewed.
When comparing immunization rates for 2017 and 2016, the last two years of the study, several new findings were discovered.
First the overall coverage rate for 3 doses of polio vaccine, one dose of MMR, 3 doses of Hepatitis b, and 1 dose of chickenpox vaccine was 90%, a high rate of coverage. Children were less likely to be up to date on the hepatitis A vaccine (70%) and rotavirus vaccine (73%). Coverage was lower for children living in rural areas when compared with urban areas and children living in rural areas had higher percentages of no vaccine receipt at all (1.9%) compared with those living in urban areas (1%).
There were more uninsured children in 2017 at 2.8% and these children had lower immunization rates. In fact 7.1% of the children with no insurance were totally unimmunized when compared with 0.8% unimmunized in those with private insurance. Vaccine coverage varies by state and by vaccine.