Researchers of the University of Turku have participated in a study in which vaccinating women with acellular pertussis vaccine in pregnancy boosted the quantity and quality of pertussis-specific antibodies in the early life of infants.
The European Commission has appointed a European Reference Laboratory to support the control and monitoring of pertussis and diphtheria in the EU/EEA countries. The University of Turku will lead and coordinate the laboratory, which includes five institutes in four countries.
A new nasal pertussis vaccine against whooping cough has shown promising results. The vaccine was shown to be safe and to work against whooping cough in a study conducted in healthy adults. Professor Qiushui He and Project Researcher Alex-Mikael Barkoff from the InFLAMES research flagship of the University of Turku participated in the study. The research article was published in the esteemed medical journal Lancet.