Epidemic

Vaccines for three deadly viruses fast-tracked

A coalition of governments and charities has committed $460m to speed up vaccine development for Mers, Lassa fever and Nipah virus.

They are asking funders at the World Economic Forum Davos for another $500m.

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi) aims to have two new experimental vaccines ready for each disease within five years.

New vaccines usually take about a decade to develop and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Meningitis epidemic threat in West Africa, but few vaccines

The first large-scale outbreak of the C strain in decades has already killed 800 of 12,000 infected people in Nigeria and in neighboring Niger this year, according to the World Health Organization.

"We've never seen this before with meningitis C," William A. Perea, coordinator of WHO's Control of Epidemic Diseases Unit, said of the resurgence of the strain.