back

 In Brazil, Field Trials to Treat World's Poor

October 11, 2006;
Washington Post Foreign Service
By Monte Reel

Private Wealth Fuels U.S.-Based Project to Create Crucial Hookworm Vaccine

Full article in the Washington Post

...the medical ghetto of neglected diseases -- the field concerned with ailments affecting the 2.7 billion people who live on less than $2 a day -- is undergoing a transformation, thanks to an influx of cash from wealthy philanthropists and an emerging development model that promotes public-private partnerships.

That transformation has allowed Pereira da Silva, who staffs a rural public health outpost that is little more than a desk and a stethoscope, to become part of a well-equipped field team testing a vaccine for hookworm -- a venture researchers had been vainly trying to sell to pharmaceutical companies for years.

If successful, the vaccine could help eliminate such hookworm-related ills as increased child mortality, stunted learning capacity and reduced economic production.

The project has been made possible with grants totaling more than $53 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which, along with other donors such as the Rockefeller Foundation and Doctors Without Borders, has in recent years provided the financial incentive to get several such ventures off the ground.

The effects of the funding are hard to miss: Since 1975, only 13 drugs targeting neglected diseases have been launched, according to a study published this year by the London School of Economics and Political Science. But at the end of 2004 alone, 63 projects to develop such drugs were underway, according to the study, and standard attrition rates indicate that eight or nine of those would reach the market.

Although sub-Saharan Africa is generally hit hardest by neglected diseases, Brazil has emerged as an important testing ground for the approach. In addition to the hookworm trial, tests across the country are targeting diseases such as leishmaniasis and schistosomiasis.

top of the page