Vaccines have been a crucial part of the fight against infectious diseases for more than 200 years.

But, those initial vaccines were primitive compared to today’s science. Modern vaccines are now our best defense against disease throughout the world.

The Australian Academy of Science states that in the “past 20 years, vaccine technology has improved, resulting in production of vaccines against a broad range of infectious diseases.” Our recent progress creates an optimism for future vaccines, but the future is still uncertain. There are constant challenges for vaccine improvement needed every year.

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We’ve long struggled to defend against dengue fever. Without a vaccine available, how can you prevent the mosquito-borne disease?

By changing the mosquitoes, apparently.

An initiative focused in the Australian town of Townsville proved that theory. The town noticed a dramatic decrease of dengue outbreaks thanks to modified mosquitoes.

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In July 2018, the U.S. Federal Drug Administration officially approved the first new medicine for relapsing malaria in more than 60 years.

The development of the drug, tafenoquine, was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Foundation CEO Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann says that approval of the drug “is a major milestone along the road to ending the scourge of malaria for good.”

While this event is notable in itself, tafenoquine (also known by the name Krintafel) is quite impressive. The drug is a single-dose treatment that fights the most prevalent human malaria parasite in the world, Plasmodium vivax.

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A century ago the world was shaken by the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, an event that infected about one-third of the world’s population. The epidemic ultimately resulted in about 50 to 100 millions deaths.

While many people may know how destructive the Spanish Flu was, few realize how much it shaped modern medicine and our response to outbreaks. In 1918, the world learned the immense value of epidemiology.

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Scientists from the University of California at Davis and Columbia University have discovered a new species of Ebola in two types of bats in Sierra Leone.

Researchers are calling it the Bombali virus and know it is capable of infecting humans. Even with that knowledge, this doesn’t mean the virus will cause immediate problems. Researchers will need to conduct further investigation to judge whether it actually poses a threat.

The information is key as some species of Ebola spread disease to nonhuman primates but not to humans. Meanwhile, other species are capable of transmitting Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) to people. Currently, researchers are not sure what the Bombali virus can do, but don’t believe there is cause for alarm. For the moment, their message to the public is to stay calm.

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