Research Roundup: Ebola vaccine licensed in five African countries, Sanofi & HHS to develop COVID-19 vaccine, and digital AMR platform in Zambia

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 Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the first digital version of its latest Model list of Essential Medicines (EML), which provides countries with guidance on the most crucial medicines to have in supply. The EML list has been revised every two years by a group of WHO experts since 1977 but has previously only been published in print or PDF format. The new electronic format makes the EML list more accessible and easily searchable, as users can filter results and export customized lists to Microsoft Excel or Word. More than 150 countries currently use the EML list to determine which medicines best meet their national health needs to compile their own national essential medicines list. US biotech firm Moderna has shipped its first batch of an experimental coronavirus vaccine to US government researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for initial trials that could begin as soon as April. The experimental vaccine candidate will be used in a phase 1 study in the United States, which will test two doses of the vaccine on 45 healthy people. Even if this initial clinical trial is successful, further testing and regulatory approvals would be required before the vaccine could be deployed for widespread use—a process that could take at least one year or 18 months. Moderna is among a slew of companies around the world rapidly trying to identify treatments or develop vaccines against the novel coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China late last year, which has infected more than 80,000 people worldwide. The first clinical trial in the United States of a potential treatment for the novel coronavirus is now underway at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. In a draft research plan published last month, WHO said this antiviral medicine remdesivir was considered “the most promising candidate” to treat the novel coronavirus, citing laboratory studies suggesting it might be able to target Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)—cousins of the novel coronavirus. Remdesivir, which is made by Gilead Sciences, is part of a study already underway in China to test its efficacy against the novel coronavirus and was previously tested in some Ebola patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo before the study was stopped. Currently, there are no proven treatments or vaccines for the novel coronavirus.

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 second-largest Ebola outbreak in history—which has infected 3,500 people and killed 2,250 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since August 2018—is down to its last chain of transmission despite ongoing violence that has hampered response efforts. The waning of the Ebola outbreak comes as the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, has captured global attention and potentially funding as well. According to a World Health Organization (WHO) spokeswoman, “Funding needs [for the Ebola response] have not as yet been fully met, and currently there is a risk there will not be funding for WHO activities beyond February.” Despite the waning of Ebola cases in DRC, last Wednesday, an independent committee that advises WHO unanimously agreed the Ebola outbreak continues to be a public health emergency—a designation recently extended to the COVID-19 outbreak. Though WHO and others have worked tirelessly to contain Ebola, the region’s health system remains weak and the likelihood of future outbreaks is high. The experimental antiviral drug remdesivir successfully prevented disease in rhesus macaques infected with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), according to a study performed by the US National Institutes of Health and supported by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Remdesivir both prevented disease when administered before infection and improved the condition of the macaques when given after the animals already were infected. MERS-CoV is closely related to COVID-19, which emerged in Wuhan, China in December of last year and has grown to be a public health emergency. The promising results of this study support the case for additional clinical trials of remdesivir for MERS-CoV and COVID-19. Gilead Sciences developed remdesivir and collaborated in the research. On Monday, February 10, President Trump released his proposed budget for fiscal year 2021, which seeks deep cuts of US$3 billion to global health funding. The proposed cuts include a 34 percent reduction to global health programs at the State Department and US Agency for International Development (USAID) and a seven percent cut in funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Center for Global Health. President Trump’s budget also proposed a 58 percent reduction in funding to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and a 50 percent cut in funding to WHO. Despite these widespread proposed cuts, the budget did include some boosts in funding—a $50 million increase for CDC’s global health security activities and $15 million for USAID’s Global Health Security programs. President Trump’s budget has been condemned by public health experts and many lawmakers, who have spoken out against the cuts which are unlikely to go into effect.