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A team led by US Food and Drug Administration researchers last week published findings suggesting that three vaccines, already approved and stored in the Strategic National Stockpile, targeting earlier H5N1 clades that circulated in the early 2000s could provide some cross-neutralizing antibodies against the currently circulating 2.3.4.4b clade, which continues to infect dairy herds and some farm workers across the United States. Federal officials are already implementing a plan to produce 4.8 million doses of an updated vaccine targeting the current clade, with the first doses expected to be delivered this month, but, before being administered to people, the shots would still need to get regulatory approval. These new study results offer hope that the old vaccines could provide some protection if there is a need to start vaccinating humans before the updated vaccines become available.
Recently published results from a Phase 2 clinical trial conducted in Sudan by the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative and the Institute of Endemic Diseases at the University of Khartoum found promising results for a new and improved treatment for people with post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis (PKDL), a serious condition that can develop after treatment for visceral leishmaniasis. The current treatment for PKDL is an injectable drug given for two to three months, which can cause life-threatening toxicity and must be administered under close supervision in a hospital. The new treatment is safer, shorter, cheaper, more effective, and more patient-friendly, only requiring patients to be admitted to the hospital for 14 days followed by an oral treatment that can be completed at home, offering hope of a new and improved tool for PDKL for affected populations, like in Sudan where nearly 20 percent of patients treated for visceral leishmaniasis will develop PKDL within six months post-treatment, the highest rate worldwide.
The Sabin Vaccine Institute and the Makerere University Water Reed Project recently launched a Phase 2 clinical trial testing Sabin's vaccine against Sudan ebolavirus, which can cause deadly disease, as seen in the recent outbreak in Uganda that ended only last year. Although Sabin’s vaccine was one of three candidates chosen to be included in a trial during the outbreak, the outbreak ended before the trial could begin. The vaccine candidate, which is based on the same platform as Sabin’s Marburg vaccine candidate that is already undergoing its own Phase 2 trial, was found to be safe and elicit rapid, robust, and long-lasting immune responses in Phase 1 clinical and nonclinical studies. There is currently no approved vaccine for Sudan ebolavirus.