Breakthroughs Blog: Vaccines

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.  Spanish researchers at Madrid's October 12 Hospital are working to develop what would be the world’s first vaccine against all five strains of the Ebola virus. The research team, along with scientists at two other hospitals in Madrid, have examined blood samples taken from three people cured of Ebola in Spain. These three people produced what lead researcher, Rafael Delgado, called ‘very effective’ antibodies against the Zaire strain with which they were infected. Delgado noted researchers aim to reproduce these antibodies on a larger scale that would make them effective against all five strains of the Ebola virus. An experimental vaccine developed by Merck was administered during the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo in May; however, it is only effective against the Zaire strain. PREDICT, a global surveillance program that aims to avert future pandemics in the human population, has discovered a new virus that infects wrinkle-lipped bats. The virus, discovered in Myanmar, is the first of its kind to be detected on a global scale and is in the same virus family as the ones that cause SARS and MERS. The research team also identified among the Myanmar bats a second new virus previously found in Thailand, conveying how diseases can easily spread globally. Although these new viruses are related to viruses that have previously caused deadly epidemics in humans, more research is required to determine if either new virus poses a threat to humans. An experiment by Australian researchers has killed 80 percent of disease-carrying mosquitoes in trial locations across north Queensland. The experiment—carried out by scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and James Cook University, in partnership with Verily—targeted a specific type of mosquito, the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads diseases such as Zika and dengue fever. Using a process called the Sterile Insect Technique, researchers bred almost 20 million mosquitoes, infecting males with bacteria that made them sterile. The sterile male mosquitos did not bite or spread disease and when they mated, the resulting eggs did not hatch causing a crash in the population. Further field trials may be held in other parts of Australia.

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.

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 mouse studies, scientists at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research have discovered a key step in the digestion process of hookworms that can be targeted to potentially disrupt the parasite’s development and subsequent survival in human blood. Scientists first proved that the mouse-infecting hookworms behaved similarly to human-infecting hookworms. Then, researchers tracked the digestion processes of the hookworms to understand how the hookworm digested heme—the molecular component of hemoglobin. Scientists tested a common chemical compound—quinolones—known to disrupt malaria and schistosoma parasites, and they found that the compound performed well in disrupting the digestion process of the hookworms. Though quinolones are not a viable treatment option for the long run—primarily due to widespread antibiotic resistance—scientists are optimistic that they’ve found a viable avenue to start exploring drugs and vaccine candidates that could affect hookworms in a similar way. Researchers found that revaccination with the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine could prevent sustained tuberculosis (TB) infection in adolescents, according to results from a phase 2 clinical trial. Researchers randomly assigned 990 healthy adolescents in South Africa who had been immunized with BCG as infants to one of three groups: A placebo group, an experimental vaccine group, and the BCG vaccine group, with the intent to monitor the rate at which individuals tested positive for TB. Researchers found that BCG’s efficacy of preventing sustained TB infection was 45 percent, 15 percent higher than the experimental vaccine, which was 30 percent. These results could help optimize BCG vaccination approaches and inform TB vaccine development efforts. A joint venture in Nigeria recently announced their locally produced vaccines will be ready to hit Nigerian markets in the next three to four years, marking the first time since 1991 that Nigerian-produced vaccines will be available to the public. The joint venture, composed of the Nigerian government and May&Baker Nigeria, targets local manufacturers of vaccines to form partnerships and work toward developing an array of vaccines for the Nigerian public. While the types of vaccines to be developed have not been disclosed to the public, the country’s former vaccine production laboratory tackled major public health threats like smallpox, yellow fever, and rabies. The government-run laboratory closed in 1991. This new joint venture plans to incorporate government support, private industry, and partnerships to bring relevant vaccines to the people.