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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. 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.

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 World Health Organization (WHO) has changed its guidelines to strongly recommend the antiretroviral medication dolutegravir (DTG) as the preferred first- and second-line treatment for all people living with HIV, including pregnant women. Last year, many countries advised pregnant women, or those who might become pregnant, to take efavirenz (EFV) instead of DTG after a study in Botswana found a possible link between DTG and serious birth defects in newborns. Presenting new research from the ongoing study at the International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science, WHO stated that the potential risk for birth defects was significantly lower than previously estimated, with benefits for women outweighing drawbacks. Preliminary testing of an implant containing a new antiretroviral drug, islatravir, in a dozen patients over 12 weeks suggests that it may protect against HIV infection for a full year. The implant, a matchstick-sized plastic rod inserted just under the skin of the upper arm, slowly releases tiny doses of islatravir, which lingers in the body for a relatively long time so it can be given less than other medications. Unlike some other HIV drugs, islatravir is absorbed into the anal and genital tissues where most infections start and is less likely to give rise to drug-resistant strains since it attacks a different stage in the infection process. The implant could help those at risk of HIV infection, particularly women in Africa, who are looking for prevention methods that are easier to use and conceal. Large clinical testing is required to determine the safety and efficacy of this implant in protecting against HIV infection. Malaria drugs are failing at an alarming rate in Southeast Asia as drug-resistant strains of the disease emerge, according to two new reports released in The Lancet—prompting global concern that this drug resistance could spread around the world. One of the studies, performed in the greater Mekong region, compared a new three-drug malaria regimen against the conventional two-drug artemisinin combo—used to treat the majority of malaria cases—when researchers noticed the antimalarial drugs in the current regimen weren’t fully wiping out the deadly parasites. The overall failure rate was 50 percent, but in some parts of the region the drugs weren’t working nine times out of ten. If drug resistance to first-line malaria drugs continues to spread, it could mean major setbacks to the global effort to control the mosquito-borne disease.

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. An experiment on two islands near the southern Chinese province of Guangdong successfully reduced the female Asian Tiger Mosquito population—a highly invasive species that is the main source of bites and disease transmission—by up to 94 percent, reducing the number of reported human bites by 97 percent. In the study, female mosquitoes were sterilized with low level radiation and males infected with Wolbachia bacteria to inhibit reproduction. Both the female and male mosquitoes were then released during the peak breeding seasons in 2016 and 2017—resulting in a near-eradication of the entire female mosquito population on both islands. Given there are no effective vaccines or treatments for many mosquito-transmitted diseases, controlling the insect’s population is one of the most effective control methods, according to the International Journal of Science. A new project is being launched by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance to test whether using biometric data as part of medical records can help boost vaccination rates among children. The trial in Bangladesh and Tanzania will fingerprint up to 20,000 children between the ages of one and five in existing health projects, using biometric data to track their vaccinations and link them to computer medical records that will replace paper-based records. Simprints, a UK-based nonprofit specializing in biotechnology in the field of international development, will manage the fingerprint collection effort. Simprints’ technology has already been fine-tuned to work with fingerprints from individuals in poor and rural communities, who are more likely to have worn, scarred, or burned fingertips. Japanese company NEC Technologies is also partnering on the project to provide image processing and matching algorithms to complement Simprints’ scanning hardware and apps. The US$3 million project is due to begin later this year and conclude in 2020. Johnson & Johnson will test an experimental HIV vaccine—a mosaic-based preventative immunization that targets multiple strains of the virus—in the United States and Europe sometime this year. The company is also conducting a phase 2 clinical trial for the vaccine in Africa involving 2,600 women in five southern African countries. Initial results from the African trial are expected in 2021. This trial comes amid other recent advancements in HIV and AIDS research. In April, Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline majority-owned ViiV Healthcare filed a new drug application with the US Food and Drug Administration for its once-a-month injection treatment for HIV, which in late-stage trials was shown to be as effective in controlling HIV as daily pills.

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 Wednesday, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced its two-drug HIV regimen, Dovato, was successful in suppressing the virus in patients over a 48-week period at the same level of a previous three-drug treatment in a late-stage trial. The study evaluated the effectiveness of Dovato in adults with HIV-1 virus, the most widespread strain, who switched to the regimen from at least a triple combination containing Gilead’s Vemlidy. GSK’s HIV drugs division, ViiV, noted that adults who used Dovato did not develop any resistance to the treatment. Dovato, a combination of dolutegravir and lamivudine, was approved in the United States in April for newly diagnosed patients. GSK already has a two-drug regimen, Juluca, on the market but only for HIV patients that have received prior treatment.Two experimental Ebola drugs, an antiviral called remdesivir and an antibody treatment called ZMapp, have been found to be effective in laboratory studies in treating the strain of the virus responsible for the deaths of more than 1,600 people in the current outbreak affecting the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). According to this new research performed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in laboratory studies both drugs inhibited the growth of the virus strain in human cells. These two treatments were developed based on strains from previous outbreaks, and this study was the first to test them on the strain causing the current outbreak, which researchers are calling the Ituri strain. According to the latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Ebola outbreak in DRC has killed 1,630 people with 2,418 total cases—making it the second biggest outbreak of the disease in history.On July 9, WHO published updates to two lists critical for global health: the twenty-first WHO Model List of Essential Medicines and the second WHO Model List of Essential Diagnostics (EDL). These lists help countries prioritize critical health products that should be available, accessible, and affordable in a health system. While the first EDL, developed in 2018, covered a limited number of priority diseases, the second list has expanded to include more noncommunicable and communicable diseases, consisting of 122 test categories. In this editorial piece, Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada Research Chair of Epidemiology & Global Health at McGill University, explains what’s included in the EDL, what follow up is required by low-and middle-income countries (LMIC) to make the list work, and the LMIC investment required to develop the diagnostic tests and laboratories necessary to deliver on universal health coverage and to better detect outbreaks, antimicrobial resistance, and pandemics.