Breakthroughs Blog: Malaria

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 week, Pfizer announced promising results from their late-stage clinical trial for an experimental vaccine candidate for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which has been causing serious concern in recent weeks. The vaccine was administered to pregnant individuals with the goal of protecting infants upon their birth. The trial found that the vaccine candidate was 82 percent effective against severe illness for infants in their first 90 days and 69 percent effective through their first six months. The Pfizer vaccine is one of several candidates that are expected to undergo review from the US Food and Drug Administration later this year.As the Ebola outbreak in Uganda continues, three experimental vaccine candidates aimed at protecting against the Sudan strain of the virus (for which there are no approved vaccines) have been sent to Uganda to be administered to people and to help generate more data for clinical trials. The candidates include one vaccine developed by Oxford University and manufactured by the Serum Institute, one developed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and licensed to the Sabin Vaccine Institute, and one candidate from Merck. Doses of all three vaccines will be deployed to Uganda through a joint effort with the World Health Organization and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the coming weeks and months.A new study conducted in Mali showed that a single dose of monoclonal antibodies provided protection from malaria infection for up to six months. While monoclonal antibodies are notoriously expensive to produce and complex to administrate, the lab-made antibodies employed in the study could prove to be a key tool to protect children and pregnant individuals in the fight against malaria, at least in the short-to-medium term. This study follows another last year, which showed that intravenous administration of the antibody prevented infection in all nine participants.

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. 

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.Regulators in Zimbabwe have approved long-acting injectable cabotegravir, (CAB-LA), making the country the first in Africa and the third in the world (after Australia and the United States) to approve the drug. The World Health Organization (WHO) called the approval a “crucial step” and noted that it would support the implementation and distribution of the prevention method in the country to maximize impact. WHO previously issued a recommendation for CAB-LA in July that cited its high efficacy in reducing HIV transmission among high-risk individuals.A research team from the University of Cape Town published new findings showing evidence that a cancer drug currently in clinical trials has shown potential in protecting from, curing, and preventing malaria transmission. The investigational drug, sapanisertib, acts by killing the human malaria parasite in the liver, the human host red blood cell, and when it divides sexually within the host red blood cells. This is an incredibly significant finding as the drug exhibits a novel mechanism of action as well as activity against multiple stages of the parasite life cycle. Further research could lead to the development of a critically needed novel malaria drug that contributes to malaria control and elimination efforts as well as addresses drug resistance.The United States provided Gilead Sciences’ antiviral, remdesivir, and Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc’s experimental antibody drug, MBP134, to Uganda in an effort to help prevent further cases and deaths in the outbreak, which is now the largest outbreak of the Sudan strain of Ebola in over 20 years. Both Ugandan and US government officials noted the need for treatment to protect the lives of health care workers, which is a key step in containment.