23-Apr-2019: Malaria vaccine pilot launched in Malawi
WHO welcomes the Government of Malawi’s launch of the world’s first malaria vaccine in a landmark pilot programme. The country is the first of three in Africa in which the vaccine, known as RTS,S, will be made available to children up to 2 years of age; Ghana and Kenya will introduce the vaccine in the coming weeks.
Malaria remains one of the world’s leading killers, claiming the life of one child every two minutes. Most of these deaths are in Africa, where more than 250 000 children die from the disease every year. Children under 5 are at greatest risk of its life-threatening complications. Worldwide, malaria kills 435000 people a year, most of them children.
We have seen tremendous gains from bed nets and other measures to control malaria in the last 15 years, but progress has stalled and even reversed in some areas. We need new solutions to get the malaria response back on track, and this vaccine gives us a promising tool to get there. The malaria vaccine has the potential to save tens of thousands of children’s lives.
Thirty years in the making, RTS,S is the first, and to date the only, vaccine that has demonstrated it can significantly reduce malaria in children. In clinical trials, the vaccine was found to prevent approximately 4 in 10 malaria cases, including 3 in 10 cases of life-threatening severe malaria.
Malaria is a constant threat in the African communities where this vaccine will be given. The poorest children suffer the most and are at highest risk of death. We know the power of vaccines to prevent killer diseases and reach children, including those who may not have immediate access to the doctors, nurses and health facilities they need to save them when severe illness comes.
The pilot programme is designed to generate evidence and experience to inform WHO policy recommendations on the broader use of the RTS,S malaria vaccine. It will look at reductions in child deaths; vaccine uptake, including whether parents bring their children on time for the four required doses; and vaccine safety in the context of routine use.
The vaccine is a complementary malaria control tool – to be added to the core package of WHO-recommended measures for malaria prevention, including the routine use of insecticide-treated bed nets, indoor spraying with insecticides, and the timely use of malaria testing and treatment.
The WHO-coordinated pilot programme is a collaborative effort with ministries of health in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi and a range of in-country and international partners, including PATH, a non-profit organization, and GSK, the vaccine developer and manufacturer, which is donating up to 10 million vaccine doses for this pilot.
We look forward to the start of vaccination in Ghana, and then Kenya later this year. A vaccine for malaria is among many innovations needed to bring an end to this disease, and we proudly stand with all countries and our many partners in progressing towards a malaria-free world.
The malaria vaccine pilot aims to reach about 360,000 children per year across the three countries. Ministries of health will determine where the vaccine will be given; they will focus on areas with moderate-to-high malaria transmission, where the vaccine can have the greatest impact.
Financing for the pilot programme has been mobilized through an unprecedented collaboration among three key global health funding bodies: Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and Unitaid. Additionally, WHO, PATH and GSK are providing in-kind contributions.
25-Apr-2017: Ghana, Kenya and Malawi to pilot malaria vaccine trial
The prospect of a malaria vaccine is great news. Information gathered in the pilot will help us make decisions on the wider use of this vaccine.
Announcement of the coordinated rollout comes as the international community marks World Malaria Day and the kick-off of World Immunization Week, 24-30 April, which celebrates the widespread use of vaccines that protect people against 26 diseases. Overall, vaccines prevent an estimated two to three million deaths each year, according to WHO.
The injectable RTS,S vaccine was developed to protect young children from the most deadly form of malaria caused by Plasmodium parasites. It will be assessed in the pilot programme as a complementary malaria control tool to potentially be added to the core package of WHO-recommended measures for malaria prevention. Combined with existing malaria interventions, such a vaccine would have the potential to save tens of thousands of lives in Africa.
Africa bears the greatest burden of malaria worldwide. Global efforts in the last 15 years have led to a 62 per cent reduction in malaria deaths between 2000 and 2015, yet approximately 429,000 people died of the disease in 2015 – the majority of them young children in Africa.
The WHO pilot programme will assess whether the vaccine’s protective effect in children aged 5 – 17 months old during Phase III testing can be replicated in real-life. Specifically, it will assess the feasibility of delivering the required four doses of RTS,S, the vaccine’s potential role in reducing childhood deaths and its safety in the context of routine use.
Pilot implementation strategy
The three countries selected to participate in the pilot were based on the criteria of high coverage of long-lasting insecticidal-treated nets; well-functioning malaria and immunisation programmes – a high malaria burden even after scale-up of LLINs; and participation in the Phase III RTS,S malaria vaccine trial. Each country will decide on the districts and regions to be included, with high-malaria-burden areas prioritized, as they are predicted to provide the broadest benefit. Information garnered from the pilot will help to inform later decisions about potential wider use of the vaccine.
The malaria vaccine will be administered via intramuscular injection and delivered through routine national immunization programmes. WHO is working with the three countries to facilitate regulatory authorization of the vaccine for use in the pilots through the African Vaccine Regulatory Forum. Regulatory support will also include measures to enable the appropriate safety monitoring of the vaccine and rigorous evaluation for eventual large scale use.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and the International Drug Purchase Facility UNITAID, are partnering to provide $49.2 million for the first phase of the pilot programme (2017-2020), which will be complemented in-kind by contributions from WHO and the British pharmaceutical company GSK .
19-Oct-2018: A gel to protect farmers from toxic pesticides
Indian farmers usually do not wear any protective gear while spraying chemicals in fields. This exposes them to harmful toxics contained in pesticides, causing severe health impacts and even death in extreme cases. Indian scientists have now developed a protective gel to address this problem.
The gel can be applied on skin and can break down toxic chemicals in pesticides, insecticides and fungicides including the most hazardous and widely used organo-phosphorous compounds. The gel deactivates these chemicals, preventing them from going deep into the skin and organs like the brain and the lungs. It has been found to be effective in tests done in rats and researchers hope to soon test it in humans.
Exposure to chemicals contained in pesticides interferes with an enzyme called acetylcholinesterase (AChE) which is present in the nervous system and is critical for neuromuscular functions. When its functioning is disrupted by chemical pesticides entering the body through the skin, it can cause neurotoxicity, cognitive dysfunction and even death in severe cases. When the gel was applied on rats and they were exposed to a lethal dose of pesticide MPT, it did not lead to any change in their AChE level, showing it could prevent penetration of the pesticide into the skin.
The gel, named poly-Oxime, has been prepared by researchers at the Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine (InStem), Bangalore from a nucleophilic polymer. In lab studies, rats treated with poly-Oxime gel survived pesticide treatment, whereas rats with no gel or sham gel showed symptoms of poisoning or died.
The gel does not act like a physical barrier, but it acts like a catalyst to deactivate organophosphate. An oxime could hydrolyze multiple organophosphate molecules, one after another. And it can do so at temperatures ranging from 20 to 40 degrees, and even after long exposure to ultraviolet light. A thin layer of poly-Oxime gel can hydrolyze organophosphates on the skin; therefore, it can prevent AChE inhibition quantitatively in blood and in all internal organs such as brain, lung, liver, and heart. It has also been found that the catalytic gel can work against a range of commonly used commercial pesticides, insecticides, and fungicides.
The research group plans to develop an active mask to deactivate pesticides since the gel now developed does not provide any protection from inhalation of pesticide vapours.
In order to understand the problem of toxicity caused by pesticides, researchers interacted with several farmers and their families. While many of them said they experienced pain right after spraying pesticides, they had no access to protective means. Farmers, according to researchers, showed willingness to adopt any low-cost topical methods that can prevent pesticide exposure.
28-Aug-2018: EU, India to collaborate on developing next generation influenza vaccine
The European Union and India will collaborate in research and innovation for developing a next generation influenza vaccine to protect people worldwide and they have earmarked about Rs 240 crore for the project.
The EU and the Indian government's Department of Biotechnology have committed 15 million Euros each to fund this joint project. The EU is funding under its programme for research and innovation 'Horizon 2020'. In total, 30 million Euros (approximately Rs 240 crore) has been earmarked for research and innovation actions which aim at advancing the efficacy, safety, duration of immunity, and reactivity against an increased breadth of influenza strains.
The joint effort also aims to develop cost-effective and affordable influenza vaccine rapidly without compromising quality. Keeping this in mind, the participating consortia need to bring together multi-disciplinary stakeholders who can represent any part of the chain from lab to market.
This joint call is another demonstration of the increased cooperation between the EU and India as committed by the leaders during the Summit in October 2017. In engaging jointly on this topic, India and the EU are contributing to an important global public health challenge.
Improved influenza vaccines would help the international community to better prepare in the event of an influenza pandemic. The outcome of the project is expected to contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 3 to ensure health and well-being for all and boost the Indian National Health Mission.
Addressing seasonal flu vaccination is also high on the EU health agenda with the European Commission urging EU member states to commit to vaccinating 75 per cent of risk groups against seasonal flu each year.
The projects require minimum three applicants from Europe (three different EU member states) or countries associated to the EU programme Horizon 20202) and minimum three applicants from India. The projects are also 'Open to the World' and thus applicants from other countries can join the EU-India consortia.