News & Insights

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. Moderna plans to ask the US Food and Drug Administration to authorize its COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in children aged 6 months to 6 years, the company announced Wednesday. Interim data from two clinical trials among children under 6 showed the vaccine generated similar immune responses to those seen in adults aged 18 to 25 who received two doses of Moderna’s adult formulation. The two-dose vaccine was, however, less effective at preventing symptomatic infection in the young children than seen in previous trials for older age groups. The decreased efficacy was on par with what would be expected of a vaccine in adults against the omicron variant, which predominated during the trial, according to Moderna. There were no severe cases, hospitalizations, or deaths in the studies.Pfizer will supply nearly 4 million courses of its oral COVID-19 treatment, Paxlovid, to UNICEF for use in 95 low- and middle-income countries. The two-drug treatment, which has emergency use authorization in the United States and is currently under assessment by the World Health Organization, will be allocated among the target countries depending on demand, clinical recommendation, and necessary approvals. Paxlovid was shown to be 89 percent effective at reducing the risk of hospitalization or death due to COVID-19 in clinical trials, and early studies indicate the treatment has some efficacy against the newer BA.2 variant that has caused cases to increase across Europe and Asia. Pfizer expects to be able to begin supplying orders to UNICEF in April and continue throughout 2022.A new “mosquito-grounding” insecticide that causes mosquitos’ wings to spasm and wither could bolster the fight against malaria, according to trial results published in The Lancet last week. In a two-year trial in Tanzania, lacing bednets with a combination of the new substance—chlorfenapyr—and a widely used insecticide—pyrethroid—significantly reduced malaria prevalence, including in regions where insecticide resistance is widespread. Insecticide-treated bednets have been central in efforts to reduce the spread of malaria, but rising insecticide resistance among mosquitos has hampered progress. Chlorfenapyr is the first new insecticide to be deemed safe and effective in about 40 years, and an ongoing study in Benin will continue to evaluate whether the substance reduces malaria transmission.

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.A clinical trial is underway to evaluate experimental HIV vaccines using the mRNA technology also employed for highly effective COVID-19 vaccines. The phase 1 trial, sponsored by the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases and conducted by the HIV Vaccine Trials Network at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, will enroll up to 108 HIV-negative adults at 11 sites across the United States. The three vaccine candidates—which use mRNA sequences designed by researchers at the Scripps Consortium for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development and the IAVI Neutralizing Antibody Center at Scripps in collaboration with Moderna—will be assessed for safety and ability to induce an immune response. Knowledge gained from the study will help guide future development of a protective HIV vaccine regimen and expand on knowledge of mRNA vaccines, according to researchers.New studies are enlisting survivors of Nipah virus, a disease with known pandemic potential and a fatality rate as high as 75 percent, to evaluate how the body responds to infection and guide the development of tests, treatments, and vaccines. More than 50 people who have recovered from Nipah in Bangladesh will participate in the effort to research the immune response to the virus, which will be led by the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh and funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. There are currently no vaccines or drugs to fight Nipah infection, though several groups are working to develop vaccines, including a team at the University of Texas that unveiled data last week showing their candidate provided rapid, strong protection in animal studies. Australian regulators last week approved a simple drug combination as an effective cure for children ages 2 to 16 with Plasmodium vivax malaria, adding a new tool in the battle against the disease and opening the door to approval in other countries. The drug—tafenoquine, developed by GlaxoSmithKline and the Medicines for Malaria Venture—is a single-dose treatment administered alongside traditional chloroquine treatment. In 2018, the US Food and Drug Administration and other regulators approved a 300-mg dose of tafenoquine for the radical cure of P. vivax malaria in adults and adolescents 16 and older. The new formulation for children is a 50-mg tablet dispersed in water, making it much easier for children to take than the 7- or 14-day course of pills developed for adults. Further regulatory submissions of the pediatric formulation are planned for malaria-endemic countries as well as the World Health Organization.

Prior to COVID-19, tuberculosis (TB)—another airborne disease—was the world’s leading global infectious disease killer, claiming the lives of around 1.5 million people annually. Insufficient and inadequate tools and treatments, and growing drug resistance, have challenged global efforts to bring the TB epidemic to an end, and more recently, disruptions from COVID-19 have reversed years of TB progress. In 2020, global TB deaths increased for the first time in more than a decade, and about 1 million fewer people were tested and treated for TB compared to 2019. At the same time, global funding for TB diagnostic, treatment, and prevention services fell by $500 million from 2019 to 2020, and total funding for TB research and development dropped by $33 million.Scientists hope the tide can be turned as new technologies and innovations advance to market—but to achieve that, more investment is urgently needed to boost resources and reverse setbacks.In recognition of World TB Day, test your knowledge of innovations to end TB with GHTC’s quiz below: