Research Roundup: An experimental Ebola vaccine, new viruses discovered, and Australian experiment wipes out disease-carrying mosquitoes

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. In the past year, outbreaks of high-fatality diseases and pathogens such as Ebola, MERS, Zika, Nipah virus, Lassa fever, and Rift Valley fever have caused at least 190 deaths and cost millions. While these outbreaks have remained relatively contained, health officials warn these diseases all have the potential to strike again and cause a global epidemic that could kill thousands, wreak economic havoc, and threaten global security the world over. According to experts, the lack of investment in research and development is contributing to this risk. The technology company Univercells has raised over US $18.8 million in series B funding to support continued development of its platform to manufacture cost-efficient biologics. This comes on the heels of positive results from a pilot program of the company’s affordable vaccine manufacturing platform. The pilot, which tested production of the Sabin inactivated polio vaccine, showed the platform could delivers 43 million doses of the vaccine per year at a cost of US $0.15 per dose—considerably lower than current versions on the market. Univercells’ backers believe these two manufacturing platforms have incredible potential to make biologics and vaccines more affordable and accessible worldwide. The World Health Organization declared in May that Nepal has eliminated trachoma as a public health problem. Trachoma, a bacterial infection that causes swollen and inverted eyelids, is the world’s leading cause of blindness with approximately 190 million people in 41 countries at risk worldwide. Nepal follows in the footsteps of Cambodia, Laos, Mexico, Morocco, Oman, and Ghana in a list of countries that have eliminated trachoma since a global campaign to eliminate the disease was launched twenty years ago. Annual administration of antibiotics in at-risk areas and improved hygiene practices have helped drive this progress. 

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. An HIV vaccine candidate has shown promising results in human trials. A study in the Lancet found that this “mosaic” vaccine—comprised of pieces of different HIV strains—produced an anti-HIV immune system response in tests on 393 people. Further testing is required to determine if the immune response produced can prevent the HIV infection in people. In the next phase of testing, 2,600 women from southern Africa who are at risk of contracting HIV will receive the vaccine. This is one of only five HIV vaccine candidates to ever make it to this stage of efficacy trials. Paraguay has eliminated malaria, becoming the first country in the Americas to achieve this milestone in approximately a half-century, according to the World Health Organization. Public health officials have credited the national health system’s ability to quickly detect cases and determine whether they had been transmitted locally or imported as critical to Paraguay’s success. Though Paraguay has thwarted the threat of malaria for the moment, nine countries in the Americas reported at least a 20 percent increase in malaria cases between 2015 and 2016. Complacency and lack of political will in other countries in the region threaten the fight against malaria. Scientists at the California Institute for Biomedical Research are testing a new approach to tackling malaria and other insect-borne diseases using a group of veterinary drugs called isoxazolines. When administered orally to animals, isoxazolines remain in the bloodstream for up to three months, killing blood-sucking insects by damaging their nervous systems. The researchers believe isoxazolines have the potential to dramatically reduce the transmission of malaria, as any mosquito who bites a person who has taken this drug would be killed before transmitting the disease to other people. The study published by the California Institute for Biomedical Research estimates that giving 30 percent of the population isoxazolines in countries affected by malaria could prevent more than 70 percent of malaria infections. Researchers believe that isoxazolines are safe for human consumption and plan to continue to evaluate their efficacy.