Thanks for listening to Our Big Shot. We have some exciting new episodes on the way shortly but in the meantime, we thought you'd like to fill your time with this fantastic episode from our friends at When Science Finds a Way. It's all about vaccination trials and pregnancy and so it should be right up your street.

You can find the rest of the series by searching for When Science Finds a Way wherever you're reading this.

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Over the years, the reluctance to include pregnant participants in vaccine trials has been increasingly challenged. That’s because their inclusion can make vital medications available during pregnancy and provide data that could improve survival rates for both parent and baby. Alisha is joined by Dr Flor M Munoz, a global expert in maternal immunisation to discuss a new vaccine trial, safety considerations and the future.

When Science Finds a Way is brought to you by Wellcome, an independent global foundation that supports science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone. For more information and podcast transcripts visit wellcome.org/podcast

In the final episode of this series, we revisit where we are now. The Covid-19 pandemic forced the world to work together, and this was eye-opening in showing how much can be achieved with co-ordination and collaboration. We examine how we can replicate this without the need for a global crisis with Dr Chikwe Iheweazu Assistant Director General of WHO.

We finish with the story that started Seema’s journey to become a doctor - her mother, Yasmin Halima, with her work as an AIDS activist in 90s and 2000s. Yasmin talks about making science and politics meet to combat HIV and how that gives us hope for the future in our fight against disease.

Guests featured:

- Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu - WHO Assistant Director-General of WHO for Health Emergency Intelligence and Surveillance Systems.

https://www.who.int/director-general/who-headquarters-leadership-team

- Yasmin Halima - award winning activist.

https://dci.stanford.edu/fellow/yasmin-halima/

In this episode we track the spread of Mpox and ask, how does the pandemic alarm system work? Does the global alarm system work?

We have powerful vaccine technologies and we are making incredible strides in understanding pathogens that threaten the health of our populations, but how we move vaccines and resources to people in need is still a major challenge for global health organisations and governments.

Seema explores mpox and it’s recent global spread and talked to Dr Mark Ecclestone-Turner about global health systems, and asks difficult questions about the effectiveness and fairness of what we have in place.

Finally we hear a report from Dr Nicaise Ndembi, from the frontline of the fight against Mpox where things are improving.

Featured Guests

- Dr. Mark Ecclestone-Turner on how the global health system reacts to emerging pandemics https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/mark-eccleston-turner

- Dr. Nicaise Ndembi on the emergence of the Mpox Clade 1b virus and sounding the alarm. https://africacdc.org/people/dr-nicaise-ndembi/