Quinvaxem Vaccine IS SAFE TO USE as confirmed by WHO & UNICEF

The Safety of The Quinvaxem Vaccine

Quinvaxem vaccine is meant to prevent five common and potentially fatal infantile diseases: diphtheria (D), tetanus (T), pertussis (P, whooping cough), hepatitis B (HepB), and Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib). Besides its worldwide usage, it has been administered to more than 50 million children globally.

Till date, 61 children have died after being vaccinated using Quinvaxem since 2007. 2013 accounting for 15 alone. The joint investigation held by the 2 international giants has failed to find any evidence that links the Quinvaxem vaccine and the deaths, said WHO and UNICEF.

In a joint public statement made - the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) have jointly confirmed that the 'Pentavalent' Quinvaxem vaccine use globally, suspected of playing a role in 61 children’s deaths post-vaccination, is in fact, safe to use.

The joint confirmation was issued on December 19 after the results of an investigation of the vaccine showed that it meets all of the highest international safety standards. They are still in fact trying to determine whether the adverse effects are due to localized foul-play or some other interference with administration.

The two international organizations have independently helped Vietnam conduct an investigation on the safety of Quinvaxem with independent technical assistance both locally and abroad.

The Quinvaxem vaccine was withdrawn for local use for about 5 months at the start of May 2013 after nine children passed away shortly post being vaccinated between December 2012 and March 2013.

It has been used again since October 2013 after investigations by the health authorities showed that there were no unsafe cases in relation to the use of the Quinvaxem Vaccine.

The vaccine was highlighted in the National Expanded Immunization Program in June 2010, and Vietnam as a country alone has administered 15.2 million doses of Quinvaxem across the country so far with no other accounts of fatalities.

Safety for use

Along with the confirmation of its safety, WHO and UNICEF also released Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for the Quinvaxem vaccine.

    For the question “Is Quinvaxem safe?,” the reply is: “Yes. There are strict quality controls at every step of the manufacturing and supply processes. Quinvaxem is prequalified by WHO to guarantee that the vaccine is of assured quality according to the highest global standards.”

Regarding the side effects of Quinvaxem, the two organizations said that like all vaccines, Quinvaxem can have some mild side effects. They include low grade fever, localized swelling, and general short term discomfort, possibilities of fatalities or adverse reactions have not been noticed so far.

In a very few number of cases – less than one per million – a child can have only a severe allergic reaction to the Quinvaxem vaccine. Health care providers are trained to respond and if prompt medical treatment is given, the child can make a full recovery.

Regarding the quality of Quinvaxem, WHO declared that there are no issues with the quality of the vaccines supplied to Vietnam. All GAVI supported vaccines procured through UNICEF Supply Division are prequalified by WHO which implies they are of confirmed quality.

    “This process is in addition to the work of the country of production’s National Regulatory Authority (NRA) and involves a review of the product’s clinical data, production process, and manufacturing facilities. WHO also visits the production sites and tests samples in addition to the testing requirements for sample batches produced.”

For the question about how UNICEF and WHO, as a major supplier of vaccines, can ensure the safety of vaccines, the two organizations replied that UNICEF only buys vaccines that have been pre-qualified by WHO and meet established international standards.

    “WHO follows a rigorous procedure to evaluate vaccine production facilities and quality standards. The quality of vaccines shipped to countries is regularly monitored through rounds of random testing performed at six-month intervals by WHO. In addition, a full re-evaluation of all pre-qualified vaccines takes place every two years.”

 Its time the local and international news agencies cease their endless campaigns in spreading fear amongst the general public.

Spec Ops: The Line - A Post Preview and Review

SpecOps: The Line (2011)

There was some excitement in my office and at IGN when I heard about Spec Ops: The Line at E3 2010 this year, not only because this game can turn the tables for the Spec Ops line, but also it happens to be based in my current city of residence - Dubai. 

Gears of War 3 was being shown alongside Halo: Reach, Medal of Honor is being revealed – I just like to root for the underdog.  Now Spec Ops: The Line isn’t 50 Cent: Blood in the Sand underdog, but it’s actually a quality underdog that could just take down the big guys.

I got a chance to see a preview of Spec Ops: The Line. SOCOM seemed to be a squad-based tactical shooter, and Spec Ops seemed to be more of a hybrid between Medal of Honor and Call of Duty, which are 2 of my favourite titles, by the way.  It’s more of a linear single-player campaign where you don’t have to worry about where your other squad mates are in relation to you at all times and how they affect the enemies your fighting. You take control of one military dude, and push your other mates forward.

It’s hard for a game to differentiate itself from the big players in the first-person military shooter genre.  The smaller guys are always compared to the mass marketed, big budget explosion-fests everyone knows about. One of the cool features that Spec Ops hopes to do is bring in an environmental element that some of the big dogs lack.  Things react to what you do.  I’ll quote an example from the E3 Demo.

In the demo we saw, our squad entered one of the abandoned temples of Dubai I believe.  The game is set in a desert region that has overrun a city.  You’ll see cars, trucks and buses have all been semi-buried by sand.  As you enter the temple, beams of light shine in through the high windows above the sand layer, and the windows and walls below have gone dark from the lack of sun coming through.  It was really a cool experience.  After a little exploration, we wondered how in the hell we were going to get out?  There wasn’t another door or anything, so we had to think.  About 20 feet up on our right side was a huge facade of windows with sand on the other side.  That was our ticket out.

We shot up the windows until they shattered into a million pieces, sending tons and tons of sand into the temple we were in.  We had literally created our very own ramp back out into the sweltering desert heat.  It was this type of moment that stuck out from Spec Ops:  The Line.  And not only in this way, but in combat too.

As we progressed further into the demo, we made our way through a series of sand channels that made their way through the sand.  The walls of the channel had barricaded the sand back as best as it could, but little clouds of dust continued to fall through.  I almost thought that if I could use this to my advantage against the enemy, why couldn’t they use it against me?  We ran across a few guys and the demo player proceeded to throw a grenade and blow one of the plates holding the sand away.  It buried the few enemies that were unlucky enough to be under it. 

SpecOps: The Line (Game-play)

Spec Ops: The Line also incorporates a moral system for key moments in the game.  But the most awesome feature of the game is supposed to be how one decision of yours can actually have an effect on the subsequent portions of the game. And what makes it even more interesting is that how you make your choices determines how your squad mates refer to you and talk to you.  Make a couple of bad decisions and your teammates won’t look at you the same way, so it actually includes the fun of having a multi-player AI while playing single-player campaigns.  You’ll also get to see some pretty f*%$'ed up shit too.  It is a military game after all.

The music they featured with the game was this sort of post-rock ambient grunge that's really just cheesy.  If they get a few licensed tracks from actual bands that do this type of stuff then they would absolutely have a winner in my book.  The slow flowing, silent guitar picking starting out but giving way to the loud crashing and crescendos later on in the song would be perfect for this type of game.

SpecOps: The Line (2011)

It’s hard these days to come up with a fresh take on the tried and true first-person military shooter.  It’s hard to do.  People try to do it all of the time, and it just doesn’t work out.  You also have to factor in that no matter what you do, you are going up against other shooters with the initials MOH or COD.  To make a name for yourself, you have to really push the envelope to do that.  Spec Ops: The Line doesn’t look to be of the caliber to take down the big guys, but it definitely has some surprise traits to look out for.  I’d say its a good middle ground between Call of Duty and SOCOM 4: US Navy Seals.

Spec Ops: The Line doesn’t have a definitive release date at this time, but we do know it should be some time in 2011.

Free Speech Rules!! Hackers Relive The Revolution

A hackers free-for-all exploded yesterday on the Web, and Facebook and Twitter are caught smack in the middle.

On Wednesday, anonymous hackers took aim at companies perceived to have 'harmed' WikiLeaks after its release of a flood of confidential diplomatic documents. MasterCard, Visa and PayPal, which had cut off people’s ability to donate money to WikiLeaks, were hit by attacks that tried to block access to the companies’ Web sites and services. Even Amazon.com, who provided free web hosting services to Wikileaks wasnt spared when they withdrew their free services from Wikileaks.Advocates of WikiLeaks complained that Amazon.com was bowing to political pressure to cut the organization from its Web services. An Amazon.com spokesman said the company was simply banning an organization that had violated its terms of service by trying to distribute documents it did not own.

To organize their efforts, the hackers have turned to sites like Facebook and Twitter. This, has drawn these Web giants into the fray and created a precarious situation for them.

Both Facebook and Twitter — but particularly Twitter — have received praise in recent years as outlets for free speech. Governments trying to control the flow of information have found it difficult to block people from voicing their concerns or setting up meetings through the sites.

Now the problem, both Facebook and Twitter have corporate aspirations that hinge on their ability to serve as ad platforms for other companies. This leaves them with tough PR and business decisions around how they should take care of situations as political as the WikiLeaks developments.

Any Internet user who cares about free speech or has a controversial or unpopular message should be concerned about the fact that intermediaries might not let them express it.

The problem came into relief on Wednesday, through an effort called Operation Payback, organized by a group calling itself Anonymous. The group spent much of the day posting notes on Facebook and Twitter that told followers which companies to single out and that documented hacking successes.

But Facebook banned one of the group’s pages, saying that using the site to organize hacking attacks like that violated its terms of use. The group went on Twitter to complain.

A Facebook spokesman issued a statement saying that the company was “sensitive to content that includes pornography, bullying, hate speech, and threats of violence” and would “take action on content that we find or that’s reported to us that promotes unlawful activity.”

In an interview Wednesday morning, Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s chief security officer, addressed WikiLeaks’s own presence on the site. He said the company had not received any official requests to disable pages or accounts associated with the WikiLeaks organization.

Facebook generally resists requests by governments or advocacy groups to take down material if that content is not illegal or does not violate Facebook’s terms of service, which prohibit attacks on individuals or incitements to violence.

Twitter allowed the Operation Payback account to stay active most of Wednesday. But the group’s account was disabled late in the day, after it posted a link to a file that provided thousands of consumer credit card numbers, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.

The company is not overly concerned about hackers’ attacking Twitter’s site, he said, explaining that it faces security issues all the time and has technology to deal with the situation.

Twitter is in a particularly delicate situation because its founders have celebrated their service’s role in political protest and free speech. They have not been shy about trying to capitalize on the good will engendered by playing that role.

WikiLeaks’s own Twitter account remains active, and it is the group’s main channel for reaching supporters and the media.

The last week has given rise to a hacking war in which counter-groups have blocked access to WikiLeaks’s Web sites by bombarding them with requests. Similar to the DDOS attacks launched on Mastercard, Visa, PayPal & Amazon.com

And now the WikiLeaks supporters have responded in kind, flying the freedom of speech banner as the motivation for their actions.

Protests have finally taken to the digital streets of revolution & freedom. Corporates really dont seem to get away with anything nowadays.

(with a little help from NYTimes)

The Link Wheel - The Link Between SEO and ORM

Over time, we seem to have underestimated SEO, and the thought that it should only affect our own domain would be the only way to go. Funny, right? The term Search Engine Optimization was only synonomous with ranking your own domain for a set of targeted keywords.

With the advent of sooooo many online properties, that (whether you like it or not) can rank higher than you at the drop of a hat and a few keyword injections, that its really not funny anymore.

As a part of an agency project, maybe more than a year ago, we launched a Search Domination campaign. Going head first and optimizing all the possible Web 2.0 real-estate that we could find. Surely enough, although for the targeted keyword, our website ranked #2 (as it did before), the newer optimizations cropped up and occupied all the other rankings on Google - mind you, pushing out around 4 negative sentiment posts in doing so in a matter of 10-14 days.

It is basically having a bunch of "web 2.0" properties (i.e., blogs, social media/networks, etc) all "linking" to a particular domain, in order to artificially "boost" rankings.
It appears google has written a simple algorithm to detect this, so to still get the same kind of link juice, you need to have multiple social networks link to multiple subdomains which then finally link to one main parent domain.
But theres no evidence yet to refute the fact that you cannot optimize a Brand name using this technique, so it not only boosts the Search Engine Optimization of your Brand/Product name, but also takes care of your Online Reputation woes.

Now thats interesting, isn't it? Killing 2 birds with one stone is not something that comes along in the Online Marketing world everyday

My office life-saver - Grooveshark

I've been using Grooveshark off and on for quite a while now, recently though I realised that downloading music is so pointless cause I'll probably listen to the tracks maybe once or twice.... But now I have the internet everywhere I go (and its all fast, mind you..)

If you create a login on GS, you can save your playlists and play that whenever you want by just logging in. They have a massive dbase of tracks and there are only a few tracks that I havent found on it yet....

They got another cool function that I noticed today - you can create your own widget for your website

Definitely worth a go, chances are people who see this, will follow eventually

Facebook Applications that made it big in 2010

Amongst all the other applications, its really no surprise that Farmville still comes out the winner on Facebook with 73.6 million users. With Café world coming in a far second at 30.2 million users. Texas Holdém coming in at 8th with 23.7 million  users & Mafia Wars at 10th with 22.6 million users.

The Top 10 list adjusts a little to allow for the addition of an older application, recently added to the metrics group used to track usage each week. iHeart, which has been an extremely popular application on Facebook for some time now, jumps onto the list in the #3 spot.
The addition of iHeart bumps some regulars such as Pet Society off the list, as it continues to face stiff competition from the ever rising newer PetVille game, developed by Zynga. Interestingly though, FarmVille, Cafe World and Mafia Wars have all been experiencing user decline over the past few weeks. Mafia Wars alone has lost almost 5 million players in the last 6 weeks.

Topping the Top 10 Gainers list is Pillow Fight. It’s a time-sensitive game allowing you to pillow fight with your friends, crushes, affair, love or enemies. The winner is declared within two days if the opponent fails to hit you back.
Next is a newer game called Tiki Farm, that seems to be a cross between Happy Island and FarmVille. You get to farm on an island, grow pineapple or sugacaner to please the Tiki Spirits, and yes, even wear grass skirts!
Rounding out the top 3 gainers is an application sure to appeal to the younger crowd – Graffiti. This app allows you to draw on the photos of your friends. Could be fun!
As predicted, Dantes Inferno appears on the list as well.

Static FBML and CSS in Static FBML tabs

I find myself spending more time working on Facebook than playing Poker, Farmville (yuck) or checking out status's cause I’m always trying to develop some basic functionalities on Facebook Fanpages. I’ve always wanted to go through the details one-by-one because I never had any formal education on HTML or CSS. Also, I thought it'd be great if this would be educational to anyone else as well...



FBML – The Basics
A bit of history – The first FB language that came was FQL (Facebook Query Language) which evolved into the Facebook API. Then in 2007, Facebook launched their Platform in order to complement their API, which uses FBML (Facebook Markup Language), which is similar to HTML in the way that it allows you to write browser interrupted code to render elements on a Facebook page or application. For example, we can now embed images, FLV’s or SWF’s, retrieve or send data, etc., essentially creating stand-alone/dependable widgets.

The only downside is that these widgets can only be used on Facebook!

Before we get into some basic code snippets, I should mention Jesse Farmer’s post An Introduction to FBML, he’s done a really good job of breaking down the theory, plus he has included some really good code examples to help you get started. You should also check out the Facebook Developers Wiki.



Static FBML Box (Script enabled widget)
For starters you will need to install the Static FBML application mentioned above. The nice thing about this widget is you can write HTML in it. So, for example if you want to load some graphics like banners, logos, etc., you can use . You can also link these images with and so on. The only drawback with this is that you cannot run any Javascript, only a majority of HTML & CSS. Not too bad considering a lot is possible with CSS. Facebook did this to prevent developers from running automatic scripts using Javascript to 'trouble' FB users.



Adding Your FBML Box or Tab to Your Page


    * In "edit page" find the “Static FBML” link, click on the pencil icon and select “edit”
    * Enter the name you want to appear in the box heading in the “Box Title” field
    * Enter the HTML content in the “FBML” field
    * When you’ve added in your HTML — click “Save Changes” and view your page to see the results.


Unfortunately there is no preview option.

*A few tips on dimensions – If you want your FBML box to appear in the left column of your Wall, set the width to 180px and/or if you want it to appear in the tabs in the main Wall column, set the width to 600px  width or less (Facebook is planning to crop down the size of a Page tab sometime in August 2010 to 520px. Nothing confirmed but always good to match the size up)


The FBML Test Console
Now that we have covered some of the basics let’s take a look at the Facebook Developer Tools. You may not be aware that Facebook offers a bunch of free online developer tools to help you learn, test, and eventually deploy your apps. For this example I will go through some basic FBML embedded in HTML.

Using the  FBML Test Console we can input our code and get a Facebook Box preview. The FBML Test Console will also output the HTML source if you need to embed it elsewhere.

The way it works is:

    * Log into to Facebook
    * Got to Facebook Developer Tools
    * Click on the FBML Test Console Tab
    * You will notice that the tool will automatically retrieve your user ID and API Key
    * Input code in the left box
    * Click on “Preview”

*Notice the Position dropdown menu, here you can choose from standard Facebook layouts like feed body, request form, etc.



Creating Custom Tabs
It’s important to create custom tabs that represent your page/brand beyond the basic Wall, Info, Photos, Events, etc.  Most successful pages use custom tabs to sell their products or services, watch demos and presentations, enter contests and so on. A good example is the Apple Students Page, they have a tab called On Campus which launches a really slick Flash app with videos, a google map mashup, and some ads.

The other bonus of custom tabs is the ability to set it as the default landing page. In your page settings you can choose which tab is set as the default, most people just use the Wall. A good example is the Nokia Page, which defaults to Nokia Twist-USA.



How do I create a custom tab? Easy! First you need to make sure you have added the FBML Application to your page. Without it you can’t create any custom widgets to display as tabs(you can also use these steps to add any of the default applications as a tab).

Click on “edit page” (link is under your profile pic when logged in) and under Applications click on the pencil icon on the top right corner of the application you want to add as a tab.
You will be giving 2 options, add/remove from Boxes and add/remove from Tab. Click “add”. Now go back to your page and refresh and you new tab should be there.



Removing Tabs
Removing tabs take only a few seconds.

Click on any of your tabs. When that page loads you will notice the tab is white and a pencil icon appears next to the tab name. Click on the pencil icon.

Click on “Delete Tab”. Told you it was easy!

The only tabs you cannot delete are Wall and Info.

*A quick tip about the Boxes tab – You can remove the boxes but not in the same way as others. To remove the boxes tab first you need to click on Boxes. When the page loads remove each box that is under this tab (the same steps as above). Once there are no boxes left under the Boxes tab go back to your wall. The Boxes tab should be gone, if not refresh a few times. Essentially this tab only exists if there is something in it!