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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. In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. The World Health Organization has prequalified Bharart Biotech’s rotavirus vaccine—ROTAVAC—enabling United Nations agencies and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance to purchase the vaccine for use in low-income countries (LIC). Bharat is currently supplying the vaccine to LICs at one US dollar per dose and expects to be able to reduce the price if a threshold of doses are purchased. Rotavirus is the leading cause of severe diarrhea and death in children younger than five years. ROTAVAC presents a new low-cost vaccine option to prevent rotavirus and is the first licensed rotavirus vaccine to be developed using a strain of the virus isolated, manufactured, and tested in India. A team of scientists have sequenced and analyzed genomes of multiple leprosy strains from around the world in an attempt to understand previously unknown mechanisms of drug resistance. Scientists found many of the genomes harbored large numbers of random mutations, explaining why many strains of the disease have become resistant to commonly used medicines. Leprosy is a painful disease that affects over 200,000 people every year, causing major damage to the skin, nerves, and eyes. Understanding the genomic structure and mutations of leprosy will aid scientists in developing effective treatments for leprosy and drug-resistant leprosy. Researchers at the University of Liverpool and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have developed a long-acting injectable form of malaria medicine that could simplify and improve malaria prevention. The scientists used nanotechnology—or the manipulation of matter on an atomic or molecular scale—to improve the delivery of an existing antimalarial through a new injectable formulation that can maintain blood concentration of the drug for weeks or months. Once injected into the muscle, this delivery method establishes a medicine depot that releases the antimalarial into the bloodstream over an extended period of time. Malaria chemoprophylaxis—the administration of antimalarial drugs prior to potential exposure—is a common malaria prevention strategy, but it requires patients take medicine daily to be effective. While still in the early stages of development, this new long-acting medicine could offer an alternative approach that may help patients improve adherence.  

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. In this regular feature on Breakthroughs, we highlight some of the most interesting reads in global health research from the past week. Research carried out in part by an artificially intelligent (AI) robot discovered that a common ingredient in toothpaste—triclosan—showed potential to interrupt malaria-causing parasites at two critical stages of malaria progression. Triclosan, an ingredient used to prevent plaque build-up, is believed to halt the parasites growth in the blood and liver by inhibiting two different enzymes within the parasite, enoyl reductase and DHFR. Triclosan was able to target and inhibit DHFR, even in parasites resistant to the common antimalarial pyrimethamine. This discovery could potentially pave the way for new drug development, and the successful use of AI could result in more robots used for drug discovery purposes. A National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded schistosomiasis vaccine candidate will soon enter a Phase 1b clinical trial in an endemic region of Brazil. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, the George Washington University, and the René Rachou Institute will lead a double-blind, randomized, and controlled study in a group of 60 males and non-pregnant females with potential previous exposure to the parasite to test two different formulations of the vaccine. Schistosomiasis is the second most deadly parasitic infection in the world, affecting more than 200 million people worldwide. The vaccine being tested targets one of two parasite species, which accounts for one-third of all cases and one-half of schistosomiasis deaths worldwide. Many individuals previously treated for schistosomiasis are susceptible to reinfection, highlighting the importance of developing a safe and effective vaccine. A new tuberculosis (TB) vaccine candidate yielded positive results in monkeys, according to a new study published in Nature Medicine. The monkey species, rhesus macaques, are genetically similar to humans, but are significantly more susceptible to TB. The vaccine reduced overall TB disease by 68 percent—a major increase compared to the non-measurable protection rate of the current TB vaccine in rhesus macaques. Additionally, 41 percent of vaccinated monkeys had complete protection from TB, while 30 percent developed a less severe case of TB than unvaccinated monkeys. Thirty percent of vaccinated rhesus monkeys showed no protection. TB kills more than 1.7 million people every year, and the rise of drug-resistant TB highlights the growing need for an effective vaccine.