Breakthroughs Blog: NTDs

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. A research team at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has discovered a key process that could provide new insight into designing more effective antimalarial drugs, as rising antimicrobial resistance complicates the ongoing global fight against malaria by rendering current drugs less effective. One promising strategy to combat poor absorption or retention of drugs in the body is the use of prodrugs that can offer a more targeted attack. However, these prodrugs need to be activated, typically by an enzyme. By identifying the primary enzyme that activates multiple antimalarial drugs, these new findings could enable the development of prodrugs for malaria, which, by design, would also be less likely to lead to the emergence of drug resistance.New research shows that wastewater sampling, including in sewer systems and on airplanes, could predict new viral and bacterial outbreaks and the emergence of new variants of pathogens weeks or even months before they become widespread, in addition to being less invasive, more efficient, and faster than current methods. A new study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demonstrates how it was able to use wastewater sampling to detect the presence of avian flu in 2022 weeks before the virus was detected in poultry and then wild bird populations. Widespread and regular wastewater sampling would enable public health authorities to better surveil population and community health and, on a more micro level, help health care providers provide more accurate diagnoses and care for patients.  Last week, the Pediatric Praziquantel Consortium announced the first administration of its new pediatric schistosomiasis treatment to a preschool-aged child in Uganda, marking a critical step toward closing the long-standing treatment gap for young children for this parasitic disease, which affects millions of children in sub-Saharan Africa. The innovative therapy, designed specifically for children between three months and six years, is also child-friendly, palatable, and heat-stable, making it especially well-suited for this population and region. The rollout is part of a program aimed at integrating the treatment into health care systems and preparing for its broader rollout across the region, starting with Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Tanzania, and Senegal.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. On World Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) Day last week, the Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund announced that it is investing $12.7 million across eight projects to further the development of new technologies to help address NTDs and a range of other diseases. Specifically, the funding aims to further the development of new diagnostics and drugs for leishmaniasis, dengue, malaria, Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever, Ebola, and Marburg, which is being led by various global product development partnerships and companies, including Medicines for Malaria Venture, PATH, and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative.   Newly published research led by the global collaborative endTB project found three new safe and effective drug regimens to treat tuberculosis (TB) resistant to rifampin, the most effective first-line TB antibiotic currently available. These findings help expand the toolkit of treatments for patients with drug-resistant TB in the face of rising resistance globally, offering regimens that are shorter, less toxic, and do not require injections compared to currently available options. The new regimens use two drugs, bedaquiline and delamanid, which have been in use for just over a decade, in combination with older medications. The trial, launched in 2017, involved hundreds of patients across seven countries, including populations often excluded from clinical trials: children, people infected with HIV or hepatitis C, and women who became pregnant while on treatment, ensuring these groups are not excluded from new treatment recommendations.A recently published study found that a prophylactic antibody-based immune therapy protected monkeys against severe disease caused by H5N1 avian influenza, as the outbreak in the United States continues to cause concern. The broadly neutralizing antibody targets a relatively stable region of the virus and is therefore less prone to losing its efficacy than antibodies targeting viral structures that are prone to mutate, helping to ensure that the protection conferred by the therapy can withstand the possible emergence of virus variants. If proven successful in further studies, the therapy could be used to prevent severe disease in at-risk populations and protect first responders and other health care providers in the early stages of an outbreak, and more broadly, this research helps set the stage for the development of medical countermeasures in the case of future outbreaks of influenza.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. 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.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) released its updated Bacterial Priority Pathogens List 2024, which aims to guide investments and R&D in new antibiotics and promote international coordination to address the rising global threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The updated list, which incorporates new evidence and expert insights, includes 15 families of antibiotic-resistant bacteria grouped into critical, high, and medium categories for prioritization based on their burden and ability to resist treatment and spread resistance to other bacteria. Five pathogen-antibiotic combinations were removed from the new list and four new combinations were added, reflecting the dynamic nature of AMR.Last week, WHO authorized a second vaccine for dengue, which will hopefully offer millions more worldwide protection against the mosquito-borne disease, which is currently behind a major outbreak in the Americas and rising cases globally. The two-dose vaccine, made by Takeda, protects against the four types of dengue and is recommended for use in children between six and sixteen years old in regions with high dengue rates. The decision opens the door for donors and other United Nations agencies to purchase the vaccine for high-burden countries.Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the use of self-collected samples with Roche and BD’s HPV tests, a decision that hopefully will expand access and reduce barriers to HPV screening, allowing more people to detect and treat cervical cancer. Screening for HPV is used to identify those who may be at risk of developing cervical cancer, most cases of which are caused by persistent HPV infection. Traditional screening involves a speculum-involved pelvic exam to screen for cervical cancer, which can be painful or uncomfortable for many patients. Self-collection allows patients to collect their own vaginal samples for screening in a health care setting.