A study of 4CMenB, a new vaccine to protect against meningitis B bacteria (which can cause potentially fatal bacterial meningitis in children), shows that waning immunity induced by infant vaccination can be overcome by a booster dose at 40 months of age, according to a clinical trial published in CMAJ. The 4CMenB vaccine, an important breakthrough in the fight against childhood meningitis, was recently licensed in Europe and is being considered for approval in Canada and elsewhere. However, although it is known that immunizing infants with the 4CMenB vaccine induces a good immune response (as shown by an increase in antibodies against this bacteria), it was not known how well this response persists through childhood. This is critically important to the potential impact of the vaccine, because children remain at risk from this infection through their preschool years, and even into adolescence.

Scientists say that the use of bracing in adolescents suffering from idiopathic scoliosis may reduce the risk of the condition progressing to the point that surgery is needed. Scoliosis is a condition in which the spine abnormally curves to the right or left. When it occurrs in a child or teen, the condition is referred to as adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS).

Novartis announced today that the European Commission (EC) has approved the use of Ilaris (canakinumab) in the treatment of active systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (SJIA) in patients aged 2 years and older, who have responded inadequately to previous therapy with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and systemic corticosteroids. SJIA is a rare and disabling form of childhood arthritis with limited treatment options. The condition is characterized by spiking fever, rash and arthritis that can affect children as young as 2 years old and can continue into adulthood. Ilaris can be given as monotherapy or in combination with methotrexate.

Researchers have identified a novel disease gene in which mutations cause rare but devastating genetic diseases known as mitochondrial disorders. Nine rare, disease-causing mutations of the gene, FBXL4, were found in nine affected children in seven families, including three siblings from the same family. An international team of researchers report the discovery in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Researchers from MIT have discovered a link between the size of a language-processing area of the brain and poor pre-reading skills in kindergartners. This finding, coupled with an MRI technique, could lead the way for an earlier dyslexia diagnosis. The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, relies on previous research showing that adults with poor reading skills have a smaller, less organized arcuate fasciculus.

Researchers from the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in the UK are revolutionizing the way children's lung conditions are diagnosed, after a study has shown how their lung capacities differ within healthy children of different ethnicities. Researchers say results of The Size and Lung Function in Children (SLIC) study, conducted by University College London Institute of Child Health (ICH), will enable doctors to interpret each child's individual lung function results against the closest benchmarks for their ethnic background when diagnosing lung conditions and deciding the best treatment to take.

Breastfeeding longer is associated with better receptive language at 3 years of age and verbal and nonverbal intelligence at age 7 years, according to a study published by JAMA Pediatrics, a JAMA Network publication. Evidence supports the relationship between breastfeeding and health benefits in infancy, but the extent to which breastfeeding leads to better cognitive development is less certain, according to the study background.

Infants develop a fear of heights as a result of their experiences moving around their environments, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Learning to avoid cliffs, ledges, and other precipitous hazards is essential to survival and yet human infants don't show an early wariness of heights.

Improving vaccination rates against the human papillomavirus (HPV) in boys aged 11 to 21 is key to protecting both men and women, says new research from University of Toronto Professor Peter A. Newman from the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. HPV is the single most common sexually transmitted infection," says Newman, Canada Research Chair in Health and Social Justice. "But now a vaccine is available that can change that and help to prevent the cancers that sometimes result.

Adding foods rich in specific amino and fatty acids to the diets of youth with Type 1 diabetes kept them producing some of their own insulin for up to two years after diagnosis, said researchers at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

New research has found that use of antibiotics in early childhood may increase the risk of developing eczema by up to 40%. The study, published in the British Journal of Dermatology, showed that children with eczema are more likely to have been treated with antibiotics in their first year of life. The research also revealed that each additional course of antibiotics may increase the risk of eczema by a further 7%.

England has decided on the vaccine Rotarix for the immunization of all babies aged two months in an effort to more than halve its annual cases of the vomitting and diarrhea bug rotavirus. The shot - already recommended for use in the US along with rival vaccine RotaTeq - has been made available in England from July 1st. This is part of a series of changes to the national immunization program through 2013 and 2014, as decided by Public Health England (PHE), the Department of Health, and National Health Service England.

Patients are not at increased risk of Guillain-Barre syndrome in the six-week period after vaccination with any vaccine, including influenza, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. The retrospective study by researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center spanned 13 years and was controlled for seasonality.

The marketing of unhealthy food to children has been disastrously effective and is only making childhood obesity even more of a problem, says The World Health Organization (WHO). WHO is calling for more control on marketing unhealthy foods high in sugars, salt, and trans fats. These types of foods are only contributing to the ever-increasing childhood obesity pandemic.

More evidence has surfaced that supports the war on smoking, especially if smokers have an infant in their household. A study published today in the June issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), found that infants with a family history of allergic disease with lower respiratory tract infections, who are exposed to secondhand smoke are at risk for longer hospital stays.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have found a promising strategy for defeating neuroblastoma - a malignant form of cancer in children - that focuses on the so-called MYCN protein. A specific chemical molecule helps to break down MYCN, which either kills the cancer cell or makes it mature into a harmless neuron. The discovery, which is published in the scientific journal PNAS, raises hopes for new and more effective treatments in the future.

The bacterium M. pneumoniae is carried at high rates in the upper respiratory tracts of healthy children and usual diagnostic tests cannot differentiate between such asymptomatic carriage and actual respiratory tract infection, according to a study by Dutch researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine.

Adenotonsillectomy, or the removal of the adenoids and tonsils, is performed 500,000 times a year in the United States, often as a treatment for children with obstructive sleep apnea. However, the procedure's ability to improve a child's attention and executive functioning, behavior, sleep apnea symptoms, and quality of life has not been rigorously evaluated until now. A study finds that early adenotonsillectomy in children with mild to moderately severe sleep apnea does not improve attention and executive functioning when compared to watchful waiting with supportive care. However, the study also found that early adenotonsillectomy can be beneficial in improving behavior, sleep apnea symptoms and quality of life.

A common nutritional supplement may be part of the magic in improving the survival rates of babies born with heart defects, researchers report. Carnitine, a compound that helps transport fat inside the cell powerhouse where it can be used for energy production, is currently used for purposes ranging from weight loss to chest pain.

FDA approves ACTEMRA for children living with a rare form of arthritis Medicine Offers a New Option for the Treatment of Polyarticular Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (PJIA) Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved ACTEMRA (tocilizumab) for the treatment of polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis (PJIA). The medicine can be used in children two years of age and older with active disease. ACTEMRA can be given alone or in combination with methotrexate (MTX) in people with PJIA.

Young children who eat the same meals as their parents are far more likely to have healthier diets than those who eat different foods, according to research. Children who rarely or never eat the same food as their parents had the poorest diets, compared with children who do.

Childhood arthritis affects one in 1,000 in the UK. It is caused by a combination of genetic and environmental risk factors, however until recently very little was known about the genes that are important in developing this disease - only three were previously known. This study set out to look for specific risk factors. To identify these 14 genetic risk factors is quite a big breakthrough. It will help us to understand what's causing the condition, how it progresses and then to potentially develop new therapies.

Scientists from UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health have found a possible link between exposure to traffic-related air pollution and several childhood cancers. The researchers found that heightened exposure to traffic-related air pollution was associated with increases in three rare types of childhood cancer: acute lymphoblastic leukemia (white blood cell cancer), germ-cell tumors (cancers of the testicles, ovaries and other organs) and retinoblastoma (eye cancer), particularly bilateral retinoblastoma, in which both eyes are affected.

In November 2014, the Department of Health announced that rotavirus vaccine will be introduced into the United Kingdom’s childhood immunisation programme (www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/11/rotavirus). The live, attenuated, two dose, oral monovalent vaccine (Rotarix, GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals) will be given with other routine vaccines to children by the age of 4 months. Clinical trials in Europe and the Americas with both currently licensed rotavirus vaccines (Rotarix and a pentavalent vaccine Rotateq developed by Merck) led to a recommendation by the World Health Organization in 2006 to vaccinate children in these regions.

The finding, published in Pediatrics, came from a new report by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) which showed that over 40% of parents were giving solid foods to their infants before they were 4 months old. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, children should not be introduced to solid foods until they are between the ages of 4 and 6 months.

The research suggests that adolescents who have family meals are more trusting and generally more emotionally stable compared to those don't. Family meals provide teenagers a routine, consistency and good eating habits, revealed a previous survey published in The Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

A baby who received antiretroviral therapy within 30 hours of birth has been cured, researchers from Johns Hopkins Children's Center, the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the University of Massachusetts Medical School reported at the 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Treating an HIV+ infant (or one with suspected HIV infection) in such a way so soon after birth is not common. This is the first case of a "functional cure" in an HIV-positive infant, the researchers announced. They say their finding could help pave the way towards the elimination of HIV infection in children.

Hexyon is the only fully liquid, ready-to-use 6-in-1 vaccine to protect infants against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), Hepatitis B, poliomyelitis and invasive infections caused by Haemophilus influenzae type b.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has published guidance recommending limits on children’s daily consumption of sodium. The guidelines vary depending on the child's size, age and energy needs, and apply to children over the age of two. The WHO has also revised its recommendations for adults, down to less than 2,000mg of sodium intake per day, from the current 2,000 mg, in addition to a recommendation of at least 3,510 mg of potassium a day.

Early life stress like that experienced by ill newborns appears to take an early toll of the heart, affecting its ability to relax and refill with oxygen-rich blood, researchers report.

Playing the recorder in kindergarten, piano lessons in first grade, clapping to the rhythm throughout elementary school music class, all of these can contribute to developing the brain. The new findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, reveal that musical training earlier than the age of seven has a significant impact on the development of the brain.

Researchers at Imperial College London have discovered a new way in which a very common childhood disease could be treated. In the first year of life, 65 per cent of babies get infected by Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). This causes bronchiolitis, and is thought to kill nearly 200,000 children every year worldwide. The team tested the effects of chemokines, proteins which cause nearby cells to move from place to place in the body. They found that when vaccinated mice inhaled the chemokines, Tregs were attracted back into the lungs where they reduced inflammation and helped to fight infection

The first ever guidelines for managing type 2 diabetes in children aged from 10 to 18 years have been issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Type 2 diabetes used to affect only adults - its incidence in children was extremely low. This is no longer the case. The rapid emergence of type 2 diabetes among children poses challenges to many doctors, who find themselves having to treat children with an "adult disease".

According to National Health Service (NHS) statistics, within twelve months of the law banning smoking in enclosed places and workplaces, the number of children being admitted to hospital with asthma symptoms fell 12.3%. Hospital admission rates due to asthma in pediatric patients continued to drop in subsequent years, demonstrating that the smoke-free legislation had and still has long-term benefits.

A new study suggests that most babies are best left to self-soothe and allowed fall back to sleep unaided. Learning how to self-soothe is a vital skill in learning how to develop good sleeping patterns during infancy, the authors explained

According to a Reuters report, the European Commission has granted approval for expanding the use of Prevenar 13 pneumococcal conjugate vaccine to older children and adolescents aged 6 to 17 years old. The decision was based on a phase III trial of Prevenar 13 in 592 healthy children and adolescents, including those with underlying medical conditions such as asthma.