Recent news
January 2012
Sabin announces start of trial for first human hookworm vaccine
January 23, 2012 -- A GHTC member announced last week that a clinical trial for the first-ever hookworm vaccine is now underway. The Sabin Vaccine Institute started a Phase I clinical trial of the Na-GST-1 antigen in Brazil, a country with high rates of hookworm infection. The trial is conducted through a vaccine product development partnership (PDP) headquartered at Sabin, which also involves the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation of the Brazilian Ministry of Health. The trial will involve 102 adults, who will each receive three injections over the course of four months. After receiving all three injections, each volunteer will be monitored for safe responses to the vaccine, and researchers will analyze the immune responses in each recipient. Pending positive results from this trial, Sabin will next conduct a trial to test the vaccine in children—the age group that will ultimately be targeted to receive the vaccine.
“This trial has the potential to revolutionize the control of hookworm-related disease,” said David Diemert of George Washington University, the trial’s principal investigator.
The human hookworm currently infects close to 600 million people across the globe and is primarily treated annually by a mass drug administration to young children in endemic countries. While these pills are successful in curing current infections in children, there are high occurrences of re-infection into adulthood. Sabin has made it a goal to produce a safe, low-cost, and efficacious vaccine to supplement the drug treatment and help avoid the need to constantly treat infections.
“After more than 10 years of research and development work and with the help of Sabin’s PDP partners, especially our partners in Brazil, we are about to show that it’s possible to produce a vaccine candidate using a relatively low-cost model. We are filling a gap to produce a vaccine for underrepresented populations, where no traditional commercial market currently exists,” said Sabin President Peter Hotez.- Read the press release from Sabin here.
