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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, Kenya became the third African country—following Malawi and Ghana— to introduce the world’s only licensed malaria vaccine. Health authorities are administering the vaccine to young children in rural areas where transmission rates are high. The aim is to reach approximately 360,000 children per year across the three countries in which the vaccine is being rolled out. Although the vaccine only protects about one-third of children who are immunized, those who are vaccinated are likely to have less severe cases of malaria. The vaccine—developed by GlaxoSmithKline, PATH, and partners—is the first and only vaccine to significantly reduce malaria in children, according to the World Health Organization. Malaria kills approximately 435,000 people every year, the majority of whom are children under five years of age in Africa. For the first time, researchers have used CRISPR gene-editing technology to try to treat a person infected with HIV. Scientists in China used CRISPR to engineer human stem cells to mimic a rare form of natural immunity against the HIV virus and transplanted them into a man with HIV and blood cancer. Though many of the cells survived in the man’s body for more than a year without causing detectable side effects, the number of cells was not high enough to significantly reduce the amount of HIV in his blood. While this research was a mixed success, scientists say it serves as proof of concept that CRISPR can be used to edit human stem cells that can be implanted safely in a patient. Researchers at the University of Alberta have developed a user-friendly, affordable, one-step test to diagnose dengue—a mosquito-borne disease that infects nearly 400 million people per year and causes flu-like symptoms. Unlike many traditional diagnostic tests for dengue which, in order to produce a precise diagnosis, require expensive equipment, multiple steps, and advanced training to operate, this test only requires a small blood or plasma sample and a portable tester that produces results in about two hours. As this new dengue test requires cold chemicals, the researchers are now exploring the use of vacuum-drying to create a powder that could withstand the heat in tropical climates where dengue is endemic. Additional research is required for field trials.

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. Human clinical trials are being planned to evaluate whether Ivermectin, a drug used to treat parasitic diseases like river blindness and elephantiasis, could become a new drug to combat malaria. Earlier this year, clinical trials conducted in Burkina Faso using Ivermectin for conditions unrelated to malaria found that it reduced malaria transmission by making the blood of people who were repeatedly vaccinated lethal to mosquitoes. Studies have also found that Ivermectin can kill plasmodium falciparum, the malaria parasite carried by mosquitoes, when administered to humans. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in collaboration with the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) and other global health partners, will perform the upcoming trials. Kemri and its partners say they hope this breakthrough could lead to the development of a new class of antimalarials in less than two years. Researchers have devised and tested a new mobile program which encourages tuberculosis (TB) patients to adhere to their treatment regimen. Compliance is a challenge with TB because treatment typically lasts for at least six months and involves multiple daily pills that can cause side effects such as nausea, fever, rashes, and stomach pain. The program, Keheala, texts patients to remind them to take their pills daily and asks them to actively verify that they have done so. Patients are ranked and told where they stand in an “adherence contest” against other patients. If patients do not verify that they have taken their pills, they receive more texts, calls, and finally a clinic is alerted. In the trial conducted, only four percent of patients in the Keheala program had bad outcomes, while 13 percent of those in the control group did. Based on these results, the US Agency for International Development will fund an expansion of this trial. Adherence to medications is crucial in treating TB, as those who miss too many pills often develop drug-resistant strains. As a result of the dengue outbreak sweeping across Bangladesh, the World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency have agreed to trial an innovative technique, known as the sterile insect technique (SIT), which uses radiation to sterilize male mosquitoes. Once sterilized, the male mosquitoes are released into the wild to mate with female mosquitoes, who then do no reproduce—reducing the mosquito population over time. SIT has been used successfully in parts of Africa to eradicate the tsetse fly which transmits sleeping sickness. Experts believe irradiating insects is better than other ways of controlling the mosquito population as it does not involve introducing non-native species or risk mosquitoes developing resistance to insecticides. The first group of sterilized mosquitoes will be released into the wild in Bangladesh in 2021-22.

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.