Breakthroughs Blog: COVID-19

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 new study from scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases that builds on decades of research offers promising findings about the immune response to HIV, which could help guide further research into HIV vaccine design and development. The researchers compared the immune system activity of past HIV vaccine study participants to people with HIV who naturally keep the virus from replicating even without antiretroviral therapy, finding that future HIV vaccine candidates may be more successful if they include additional doses or persist longer in the body to continue to stimulate the immune system to deliver the proteins necessary to destroy HIV-infected cells. The research is especially encouraging given the recently halted HIV vaccine trial and hopefully can lead to further advances in the field.Last week, the Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund announced that it will invest approximately $8.8 million to accelerate the further development and commercialization of a triple artemisinin combination drug against malaria. Specifically, the investment will support a global, multicenter phase 3 clinical trial project in Africa and Southeast Asia led by Fosum Pharma. The project also includes the development of a co-formulated child-friendly version of the drug, given the high proportion of malaria deaths that occur in children under five. The new drug could also play a role in addressing the rising threat of malaria drug resistance. Recent findings suggest that an inhaled vaccine for COVID-19 delivered directly to the respiratory tract where the virus infects the body could improve protection against infection. The researchers tested COVID-19 vaccine boosters delivered via nasal spray, inhaler, and a shot in the arm in adult rhesus macaques, finding that the inhaled vaccine provided greater mucosal immunity than the other two methods. The promising findings will hopefully further research toward more effective vaccines against COVID-19 and other respiratory viral infections.

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 Wednesday, the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) announced the results of a successful phase 3 trial, conducted in collaboration with Innoviva Specialty Therapeutics and supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which found that a single dose of a first-in-class oral antibiotic, zoliflodacin, was as safe and effective as standard therapy for treating uncomplicated urogenital gonorrhea. The growing resistance of the gonorrhea bacteria to many classes of antibiotics has left only one remaining globally recommended treatment available as an option. Zoliflodacin, if approved, could not only help address those rising cases because studies have shown that it is active against multi-drug resistant gonorrhea strains, but the antibiotic will also simplify treatment because it is one pill rather than an injection and a pill like the current standard therapy. Last week, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the University of Oxford announced the launch of a new project to develop prototype vaccines against an arenavirus called Junin virus, which causes Argentine hemorrhagic fever. The project is aimed at kickstarting the broader development of vaccines for arenaviruses, which include the virus that causes Lassa fever, one of CEPI’s priority pathogens. CEPI will invest $25 million in the development of early prototypes of viral vector and mRNA vaccines against the Junin virus, as well as the improvement of the ChAdOx viral vector technology, part of the broader partnership between CEPI and Oxford to support vaccine development for a variety of viral families with future epidemic or pandemic potential. In a recent study, researchers have identified a new molecule in cells that is necessary for the Ebola and Marburg viruses to infect and spread in the body and that is also involved in SARS-CoV-2 infections. This discovery could eventually lead to new antiviral drugs for Ebola and Marburg, among other viral infections. The molecular, CCZ1, is a protein that regulates the transport of other molecules by cells. Researchers from the Karolinska Institutet and Institute of Molecular Biotechnology used advanced stem cell libraries and lab-grown organs to study how viruses infect the human liver and blood vessels and ultimately demonstrate how CCZ1 operates as a key factor in their spread through the body. 

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. Pfizer and BioNTech last week reported promising early-phase data on an mRNA combination vaccine against COVID-19 and influenza and announced plans to start a phase 3 trial of the vaccine, following Moderna’s similar announcement for its combination vaccine earlier this month. Moderna’s trial began last week, with Pfizer and BioNTech’s likely to start in the coming months as well. A combination vaccine for COVID-19 and influenza has the potential to greatly reduce the burden of these respiratory viruses on patients, providers, and health care systems, underscoring why these companies and the broader research community have placed a greater focus on combination vaccines coming out of the pandemic.At the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) last week, the World Health Organization reported the results of a major evaluation of a pilot rollout in three African countries of RTS,S, the first approved malaria vaccine, showing positive findings about the lives it has already saved. RTS,S cut deaths among young children by 13 percent over nearly four years and cut cases of severe malaria by 22 percent among kids young enough to have received a three-shot regimen. The RTS,S vaccine is notably not a perfect tool, given the limited durability of its protection and lower efficacy, but health experts say this data makes a strong case for broader rollout of RTS,S and the potential of integrating the second approved malaria vaccine, R21, into multipronged efforts to fight malaria.A research team at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has shown for the first time that human volunteers can be safely and effectively infected with Zika virus, which could benefit research efforts to gain a greater understanding of the disease and to develop vaccines and treatments to use against it, as none currently exist. This controlled human infection model is useful for research because during the 2015-2016 outbreak, researchers were unable to test experimental products in time before the epidemic subsided, and since, there have not been any large outbreaks. The new model is controversial but has been ruled by US regulators and the World Health Organization as safe and scientifically important.

At GHTC, we get to read stories every day about incredible innovations in global health. Most of the technologies we see are inventive, some are revolutionary, and a few are so unusual, one might think they were ripped from the pages of a science fiction novel. Now, we’re testing how well you know these global health technologies with our annual Halloween game: the TRICK or TREATment quiz.For each question, we will present a description of a global health technology. Choose TREATment if you believe this innovation exists. Choose TRICK if you think we are trying to pull one over on you and, instead, the product is still in development or is just a figment of our imagination.