EDCTP portfolio: Neglected infectious diseases
index
EDCTP has joined forces with a Japanese funding agency to progress a young children’s version of a drug treatment for schistosomiasis, a common and debilitating parasitic disease.
Partnering up in the battle against parasitic infections
Schistosomiasis, a neglected infectious disease caused by parasitic flatworms, affects around 250,000 people a year, most of them in Africa. It causes a variety of symptoms, including abdominal pain and diarrhoea, and may lead to more serious organ damage and even death. In children, infections interfere with growth and development, and therefore have lifelong impact.
Schistosomiasis can be treated with a drug known as praziquantel. However, currently used praziquantel pills are difficult for young children to swallow, cannot be crushed, and have an unpleasant bitter taste.
The challenge
The Pediatric Praziquantel Consortium, funded primarily by the Japan-based Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT), has developed a new praziquantel pill that dissolves in the mouth, making it easier to give to young children. In partnership with EDCTP, the Consortium will undertake one clinical trial to test the safety and efficacy of this new formulation in young children in Cote d’Ivoire and Kenya. The trial will be carried out to international regulatory standards, so that their results can feed directly into submissions to regulatory agencies and the new pills can rapidly be made available to young children.
The project
The new formulation will enable more young children to gain the benefits of praziquantel – potentially both for treatment and in mass drug administration campaigns to prevent infections. More generally, the project is the first outcome of an ongoing partnership between EDCTP and GHIT, organisations with common interests in HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB and poverty-related infectious diseases.
Impact
“
test the safety and efficacy of this new formulation in young children
”
Bringing antiretroviral drugs to children
The CHAPAS trials have ensured that many more children with HIV have benefited
from life-saving antiretrovirals.
EDCTP portfolio: HIV & HIV-associated infections
The challenge
Schistosomiasis, a neglected infectious disease caused by parasitic flatworms, affects around 250,000 people a year, most of them in Africa. It causes a variety of symptoms, including abdominal pain and diarrhoea, and may lead to more serious organ damage and even death. In children, infections interfere with growth and development, and therefore have lifelong impact.
Schistosomiasis can be treated with a drug known as praziquantel. However, currently used praziquantel pills are difficult for young children to swallow, cannot be crushed, and have an unpleasant bitter taste.
The Pediatric Praziquantel Consortium, funded primarily by the Japan-based Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT), has developed a new praziquantel pill that dissolves in the mouth, making it easier to give to young children. In partnership with EDCTP, the Consortium will undertake one clinical trial to test the safety and efficacy of this new formulation in young children in Cote d’Ivoire and Kenya. The trial will be carried out to international regulatory standards, so that their results can feed directly into submissions to regulatory agencies and the new pills can rapidly be made available to young children.
The project
The later CHAPAS-3 trial compared the efficacy and safety of three fixed-dose combinations including two without stavudine (found to have some long-term side effects in adults, leading to a recommendation that its use be discontinued in children). The trial the first of its kind in Africa studied nearly 500 children at four sites in two African countries.
The new formulation will enable more young children to gain the benefits of praziquantel – potentially both for treatment and in mass drug administration campaigns to prevent infections. More generally, the project is the first outcome of an ongoing partnership between EDCTP and GHIT, organisations with common interests in HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB and poverty-related infectious diseases.
ratios forfixed-dose combinations and on appropriatedosage according to weight.
The CHAPAS-3 trial confirmed the effectiveness of fixed-dose combinations, providing further impetus to the rollout of antiretrovirals to children. Its evidence on abacavir informed the WHO recommendation of abacavir-containing combinations for first-line therapy in children. Trial data have also been used to support applications for regulatory approval for new scored efavirenz tablets.
Impact
L’homme RF et al. Nevirapine, stavudine and lamivudine pharmacokinetics in African children on paediatric fixed-dose combination tablets. AIDS. 2008;22(5):557–65.
Mulenga V et al. Abacavir, zidovudine, or stavudine as paediatric tablets for African HIVinfected children (CHAPAS-3): an open-label, parallel-group, randomised controlled trial. Lancet Infect Dis. 2016;16(2):169–79.
WHO. Guidelines on the use of antiretroviral drugs for treating and preventing HIV infection: recommendations for a public health approach. 2010.
WHO. Consolidated guidelines on the use of antiretroviral drugs
for treating and preventing
HIV infection: Recommendations for a public health approach
(second edition). 2016
Projects: Children with HIV in Africa Pharmacokinetics and Adherence of Simple Antiretroviral Regimens (CHAPAS): CHAPAS-1 and -3
Project lead: Professor Chifumbe Chintu, University Teaching Hospital, Zambia (CHAPAS-1); Dr Veronica Mulenga, University Teaching Hospital, Zambia (CHAPAS-3)
Target population(s): Children with HIV
Sample size: 71 (CHAPAS-1); 480 (CHAPAS-3)
Countries involved: Ireland, the Netherlands, the UK, the USA, Zambia (CHAPAS-1); Uganda, Zambia (CHAPAS-3)
Project duration: 2005–2009 (CHAPAS-1); 2010 –2011 (CHAPAS-3)
EDCTP funding: €1.2M (CHAPAS-1); €4.6M (CHAPAS-3)
Total project funding: €1.2M (CHAPAS-1); €5.0M