In the United States, children routinely receive an injectable form of the polio vaccine. This vaccine is very effective at preventing illness, but it doesn't block transmission of the polio virus as well as the oral polio vaccine does. Poliovirus is usually transmitted through contaminated food or water, so the GI tract is where the body is first exposed. Because the oral vaccine induces a mucosal immune response within the GI tract, it is much more effective at preventing infection and spread of the virus. However, there is a small chance that the oral vaccine can become infectious, so many countries have stopped using it. Researchers at MIT have now come up with a way to modify the injectable vaccine so that it can also promote a mucosal immune response. This vaccine could help to achieve polio eradication while avoiding the risks of the oral polio vaccine. 'People who are vaccinated with the injectable vaccine are not getting sick, but they may be helping the virus circulate. Mucosal immunity could help lower that shedding and ideally eliminate it,' says Ana Jaklenec, a principal investigator in MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research....

The tally of people with suspected and confirmed cases of Ebola in central Africa is rocketing upwards with shocking speed ' from 256 cases on 16 May to roughly 1,000 as of 27 May. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), some 240 people have died ' and the outbreak shows no signs of slowing down (see 'Ebola's surge continues'). But specialists say that they have tools to help to control the outbreak, which is for now confined to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, thanks to hard-won expertise gained during previous Ebola epidemics. The DRC, which is the epicentre of the current outbreak, has contended with several outbreaks of Ebola over the years, notes Chima Ohuabunwo, an epidemiologist at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. As a result, the DRC is one of the world's most experienced countries in handling the virus species that cause the disease. 'We should be in a better position to respond' than during previous outbreaks, Ohuabunwo says. One challenge is that there is neither a vaccine nor a targeted treatment for the specific virus causing this outbreak, the Bundibugyo species of ebolavirus. This means that other measures will be needed to stop the virus's march. Here are some of the measures that specialists recommend....

Employees can pragmatically absorb only one or two major changes per year, yet leaders are planning three or four by 2027, according to research. Leaders who want to help their teams navigate change must pay close attention to how people are experiencing it. They can apply three strategies to help: Make dialogue with employees nonnegotiable, develop a shared change story, and sequence changes better. In 2021-2022, CareRx was handling an ambitious expansion. In a span of 20 months, the Canadian pharmacy services company tripled its business through a series of acquisitions. Each acquired company brought its own processes, systems, and cultural norms. Employees barely had time to adjust before the next change arrived. 'We were growing so fast that the organization could not keep up,' said Adrianne Sullivan-Campeau, chief employee and customer experience officer at CareRx. 'We had teams under the same roof not speaking the same language. It was an us-versus-them situation.' In late 2022, compounded by the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, turnover spiked and customer complaints piled up. At one location, Sullivan-Campeau recalled, a leader from the head office arrived to roll out yet another change, and employees turned them away. ''Leave us alone,' they said. 'We're done.''...

On 17 May the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an ongoing Ebola outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. Centred on the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, the outbreak has seen mounting numbers of suspected cases and deaths linked to the rare Bundibugyo species of Ebola virus....