Breakthroughs Blog: WHO

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.Researchers have developed a low-cost, biodegradable larvicide that can kill the larvae of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits Zika, dengue, yellow fever, and chikungunya. Using a technique known as microencapsulation, researchers developed capsules, or shells, made of corn starch that slowly release thyme essential oil when in water—where Aedes aegypti mosquitoes lay their eggs—but remain intact in a dry environment. Thyme oil contains a natural compound that kills the larvae. In the study, the shells only released 20 percent of the thyme oil on first contact with water, meaning the microcapsules could remain functional for approximately five rain cycles. Researchers suggested that the public sector could produce and distribute these low-cost microcapsules so that people can pour them where rainwater accumulates. Stemming mosquito development at the larvae stage, when insects are most vulnerable and not yet a potential vector for diseases, is key to stemming mosquito and disease proliferation. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the philanthropy Flu Lab announced Thursday that US$12 million will be awarded to as many as eight scientific teams to conduct foundational research in pursuit of a universal flu vaccine. The maximum grant will be two million dollars and will stretch over two years. The announcement of six of the grants was made last week in Singapore at Options for the Control of Influenza, the flu world’s largest scientific conference. This research will investigate how to design a flu vaccine that could protect against the multitude of influenza strains, which would not need to be updated frequently as flu viruses mutate. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), called on donors for $7.4 billion to help immunize 300 million children against life-threatening diseases between 2021 and 2025—saving up to eight million lives worldwide. This announcement was made in Yokohama, Japan alongside a three-day international conference on African development. Gavi is backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, World Health Organization, donor governments, and others to fund immunization programs in low-income nations. Gavi CEO Seth Berkley reinforced the urgency around this announcement, noting that 1.5 million people die of vaccine-preventable diseases every year.

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. Last Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the findings of its malaria eradication report, a three-year long analysis of the global fight against the mosquito-borne disease, calling for “transformative tools and knowledge” to achieve eradication. A summary of the report noted that current tools are not sufficient to wipe out the disease and urged scientists and global health funders to invest in research and development (R&D) of new vector control technologies, vaccines, and medicines to prevent and treat the disease. Currently, less than one percent of investment in health R&D goes to developing tools to tackle malaria. The report calls attention to the funds, tools, and political will needed to control the disease considering WHO data which shows that progress against malaria is stalling after a decade of significant decline in malaria cases and deaths. A phase 3 study from GSK’s ViiV Healthcare showed an injection of its drug cabotegravir and Johnson & Johnson’s Edurant (rilpivirine) could work just as well when given every two months as it does as a monthly therapy. An application of this two-drug injectable regimen as a once-monthly injection has already been put under US Food and Drug Administration priority review with a decision expected by December 29. In two earlier phase 3 trials, the long-acting injectable therapy was found to be as effective as both an oral three-drug regimen of two nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors plus a third agent and ViiV’s own triple drug therapy, Triumeq, in reducing viral load. These results demonstrate progress in efforts to reduce the number of medicines a person living with HIV must take as well as the frequency of treatments. British technology and energy company, Sure Chill, has developed a refrigerator to protect medical supplies, such as vaccines, from power outages. Vaccines are often temperature sensitive to both high and low temperatures, which presents a major challenge for health workers in low-resource settings with limited or unreliable electricity supplies. The refrigerator works by harnessing a natural phenomenon. The refrigerator has a cold compartment that is surrounded by water that cools when connected to power, forming a layer of ice above the chamber. When the electricity is shut off, the warm water rises as the ice melts, keeping the water at a consistent temperature for up to four weeks without power. The refrigerator has kept more than 20 million vaccinations cold and has been approved for use by the WHO.

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. The first vaccine against chlamydia—one of the most common sexually transmitted infections—has proven to be safe and effective in a phase 1 clinical trial. The trial tested two different versions of the vaccine and though both elicited an immune response, one performed better than the other. Further testing will proceed with that version. Due to the complexity of the bacterium, researchers posit that a successful vaccine must provoke a strong immune response both with antibodies to fight bacteria outside of the cells, and immune system protein and cells to help clear the bacteria from infected cells. Approximately 131 million people are infected with chlamydia each year. If left untreated, it can cause chronic pelvic pain and infertility in women. Last Wednesday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new drug, pretomanid, for treatment of highly drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). Pretomanid, developed by TB Alliance, was approved as part of a three-drug, six-month, all-oral regimen, which also includes bedaquiline and linezolid—collectively known as BPaL. In a clinical trial, 95 out of 107 patients had a successful outcome after six months of treatment with the regimen. The historical treatment success rate is 34 percent. Pretomanid is only the third FDA-approved anti-TB drug in more than 40 years, though TB remains the world’s number one infectious disease killer. In what is being hailed as a landmark announcement, two antibody-based therapies have proven to dramatically improve the survival rate of people newly infected with Ebola in a clinical trial conducted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)—raising hope that the yearlong epidemic in the DRC and future outbreaks of the virus can be more easily contained. The two treatments, REGN-EB3, developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and mAb114, developed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, were among four therapies tested as part of a clinical trial that began in November. These two treatments will now be offered to all patients, with experts recommending that the other two therapies involved in the clinical trial be stopped. The yearlong Ebola outbreak in the DRC, which was declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization last month, has infected 2,800 people and killed more than 1,800 people.

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. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is hoping that an ambitious effort to create a “Google” for biomedical research could help researchers connect the dots between health data sets to unlock new scientific insights and discoveries. Launched by NIH in 2016, the Biomedical Data Translator program is attempting to create a tool that would integrate different data sources, ranging from electronic health records to clinical trial results, and apply machine learning techniques to reason through the information allowing researchers to make connections between not previously associated datasets and identify trends across them. So far, the program has awarded approximately US$17.5 million to 19 institutions across the country working to integrate and organize years of data. The initial feasibility phase of the project is set to end this year. Surveys conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 18 countries from 2014 to 2018 reveal an alarming surge in resistance to critical HIV drugs. In the past four years, 12 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas have surpassed the acceptable levels of drug resistance against two key HIV drugs, efavirenz and nevirapine—showing more than ten percent of adults with HIV have developed resistance to these drugs in these nations. Though the causes of drug resistance are unclear, the co-author of a WHO report on the survey’s findings suggests drug-resistant HIV may develop when people interrupt treatment. In response to this evidence, WHO recommends that countries use dolutegravir as first-line treatment against HIV since the likelihood the virus will develop resistance is lower with dolutegravir than with other antiretrovirals. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) will provide biotech company, Valneva, with up to $23.4 million to fund the development of a single-dose, live-attenuated vaccine for Chikungunya—a mosquito-borne disease which causes fever, severe joint pain, muscle pain, and fatigue. The funding from CEPI will support vaccine manufacturing and late stage clinical development to help accelerate regulatory approval of the vaccine for use in regions where outbreaks occur. Valneva plans to maintain a stockpile of the vaccine and transfer its manufacturing to Chikungunya-endemic regions. Since Chikungunya re-emerged in 2004, approximately 3.4 million cases in 43 countries have been identified.