Research Roundup: Excess iron may lead to a harder malaria fight, brain damage and Zika in infants, and more

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. While wild poliovirus cases have dropped significantly over the years—with only 22 total reported cases in 2017—surveillance gaps still linger, making future progress in wild polio eradication more fragile. Three countries have yet to be declared free of wild polio transmission: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. Researchers found that health-facility surveillance was limited in these countries due to conflict situations. While community-based surveillance was effective in identifying cases, experts noted that more case searchers are needed in displaced persons camps and more community participation required to reach inaccessible areas. Researchers stressed that strong polio surveillance will still be needed long after eradication and after the oral poliovirus vaccine is discontinued. Researchers have created a new animal model to more effectively study Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, according to new research published in Nature Microbiology. Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, a viral disease spread by ticks, is fatal in nearly one of three cases, and there are no specific treatments or vaccines for the disease. To advance this research, scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases conducted a pilot study infecting African green monkeys, rhesus macaques, and cynomolgus macaques with the virus. While the first two monkey species showed no signs of disease, two of the three cynomolgus macaques developed the virus. In a larger study with the cynomolgus macaques, all of the animals developed the virus. Because this species developed the virus in the same way humans do, researchers believe this animal model will be useful in studying how infection interacts with the immune system and ultimately help scientists develop treatments and vaccines. Scientists at the University of Waterloo have developed a new tool to prevent HIV transmission in women. The tool, a vaginal implant that looks similar to an intrauterine device, decreases the number of cells that HIV can target within a woman’s genital tract. HIV infects the body by taking over T cells that the immune system mobilizes in response to the virus; however, if these cells remain in a resting state and do not attempt to respond to the virus, they are not infected. Scientists believe this tool, which releases a medicine to induce T cells into a resting state, could be a more reliable way to encourage the cells not to respond to infection, lowering the rates of HIV transmission. While more research is needed into the reliability and validity of the tool, scientists are optimistic that this may be a useful tool to protect women at high risk for developing HIV.

  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.   A new study suggests that a newly discovered class of antibiotics could potentially wipe out drug-resistant staph infections caused by MRSA, raising hope for progress in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. Scientists at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence focused on MRSA because infection produces “persister” cells—cells that evade common antibiotic treatment by lying dormant in the body. The research team tested thousands of lab-made molecules on roundworms infected with MRSA and discovered two molecules from the retinoid family that not only killed normal MRSA cells, but also the “persister” cells as well. While these retinoids were not effective against another group of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause urinary tract infections, pneumonia, and other conditions; they still hold promise in treating persistent and antibiotic-resistant forms of MRSA, which can be lethal to patients. Scientists at Yale University have developed a new experimental RNA therapy, delivered via the nose, to treat West Nile Virus infections. In mice studies, the therapy reduced the viral load in the brain, allowing the organism’s immune system to properly destroy the remainder of the virus throughout the body as well as develop long-term protection against future exposure. By using RNA molecules that are effective against flaviviruses combined with a peptide derived from the rabies virus that is able to interfere with nerve cells and delivering them through the nose, scientists were able to bypass the blood-brain barrier to kill the virus in the brain with 90 percent effectiveness in the mice studies. There is currently no approved vaccine or effective therapy to treat West Nile Virus. A new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases suggests that the medication ivermectin can make human blood deadly to malaria-carrying mosquitoes, offering a new potential strategy to fight this deadly disease. Researchers at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine found that three high doses of invermectin—a medicine originally developed to combat river blindness and elephantiasis—made human blood toxic to mosquitoes for 28 days after the third treatment, while producing few side effects in patients. In lab tests, 97 percent of mosquitoes died within two weeks of feeding on the blood with ivermectin. While more research is needed, this discovery could offer a potential new approach to complement existing malaria control programs.