chaga’s disease

This new drug could fight 3 of the deadliest infections in developing nations

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A single drug has shown potential in fighting three major infections – sleeping sickness, Chagas disease, and leishmaniasis – that infect 20 million people each year in developing countries.

The drug has so far only been tested on animals, but the results have been so postivite, researchers are ready to start human trials once the current round of safety testing is complete.

“What makes [the drug] special is the fact it is targeting all three parasites. That’s the first time it has been done, so it is quite special,” one of the researchers, Elmarie Myburgh from the University of York in the UK, told James Gallagher from the BBC.

“To me, this is obviously a big deal, I’m in this field to try and make a difference, to get to a cure, and we’re working hard in the hope that it gets to patients,” she added. “There’s been very little incentive to spend a lot of money on these diseases as they affect a very poor, and yet large, population.”

For now, the drug is known as GNF6702.

The team investigating its effects, led by researchers from the Novartis Research Foundation in San Diego, says that it could treat all three of the infections by seeking out and destroying the similar parasites that cause them – all of which are a type of single-celled organism called kinetoplastids.

Sleeping sickness – an infection that can result in a prolonged coma – is caused by the Trypanosoma brucei parasite, and spread via tsetse flies.

Chagas disease, which can enlarge a person’s heart, is caused by the Trypansosoma cruzi parasite, and spread by assassin bugs.

The third disease, leishmaniasis, is caused by the Leishmania parasite, which is spread by sand fly bites. You only need to Google this one to know how devastating it is.

All three diseases are responsible for 50,000 deaths a year in developing nations.

The team designed the drug to seek out and destroy something called the proteasome – a protein complex that recycles waste proteins and is found inside most eukaryote and archaea species, including humans.

In the past, researchers had thought it was impossible to target these proteasomes because it would be too hard to differentiate between the species. But the researchers were able to find a target that was remarkably similar across the three parasites, but distinct enough from the human version.

To find a drug that would attack this target, the team tested some 3 million compounds before finding one that would attack the parasite proteasome, while leaving the human version alone.

They then took this compound and manipulated it to make it more potent,reports Gallagher.

While a single drug for all three diseases would obviously be the best option, because it’d be cheaper and easier to distribute, the researchers are also looking into the possibilty of developing the drug into three specialised, to achieve more efficient results.

“It may be a single drug for all three diseases may not be the best strategy,” one of the team, Richard Glynne from the Novartis Research Foundation, told the BBC.

“The biology of the diseases is different. For example, in sleeping sickness the parasite is in the brain, so you need a drug that gets into the brain, so there are tweaks that may be required.”

The current method of treatment for these infections is to administer toxic chemicals – typically through an IV – to patients.

But since many people in the affected nations don’t have access to IV facilities, many patients aren’t properly treated, so finding a more effective drug – or drugs – would be a huge step forward.

The new parasite-fighting drug will have to undergo human testing before we know for sure if it really is the “new hope” people are branding it, but the researchers are cautiously excited.

“We continually face challenges getting medicines to those people and making affordable medicines is an important first step. This is quite an important piece of research, I’m excited by it, but there’s still a long way to go,” said Wellcome Trust researcher, Stephen Caddick, who was not involved in the research.

WHO Seeks Sensitivity in Disease Naming

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If you’re a scientist and have just identified a dangerous new disease in Peru originating from pigs then please don’t call it paralytic Peruvian pig pox.

Disease names like swine flu or Rift Valley fever risk stigmatizing communities and damaging economies, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Friday as it called for a rethink on naming new human diseases.

Point is to avoid stigmatizing regions, individuals, or animals.

“This may seem like a trivial issue to some, but disease names really do matter to the people who are directly affected,” said Keiji Fukuda, WHO’s assistant director-general for health security.

“We’ve seen certain disease names provoke a backlash against members of particular religious or ethnic communities, create unjustified barriers to travel, commerce and trade, and trigger needless slaughtering of food animals. This can have serious consequences for people’s lives and livelihoods.”

The world health body issued guidelines for the naming of new human infectious diseases to minimize any negative impact.

Terms to be avoided include geographic locations such as Middle East respiratory syndrome or Spanish flu, people’s names as in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and Chagas disease, and animals such as bird flu or monkey pox.

Cultural or occupational references are also a no-no, as are words that incite undue fear like “fatal” and “epidemic”.

Diseases are often given common names, which quickly gain currency as they spread via the Internet and social media, WHO said. Once they are in use they are hard to change.

“It is important that whoever first reports on a newly identified human disease uses an appropriate name that is scientifically sound and socially acceptable,” WHO added.

The guidelines say a name should consist of generic descriptive terms based on the relevant symptoms such as respiratory disease, neurologic syndrome or watery diarrhea.

More specific descriptions like progressive, juvenile, severe or winter can be included when it becomes clear how the disease manifests, who it affects, its severity or seasonality.

The pathogen that causes the disease should be part of the name if it is known, for example, coronavirus or salmonella.

The guidelines, aimed at scientists, national authorities and the media, do not affect names that are already established.

The final name of any new human disease is assigned by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), which is managed by WHO. Its new guidance is meant to cover the gap between identification and the assigning of the final name.

Chagas disease and stroke

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Chagas disease is a neglected infectious disease in the tropics and an emerging health problem in Europe and the USA. In the past decade, a link has been recorded between ischaemic stroke and Trypanosoma cruzi infection in several epidemiological studies, and an increase in stroke prevalence is expected with the ageing of the population infected with T cruzi in Latin America. Heart failure, mural thrombus, left ventricular apical aneurysm, and several types of cardiac arrhythmias are associated with stroke in Chagas disease. Stroke could also be the first sign of Chagas disease in asymptomatic patients and those with mild systolic dysfunction, so patients with stroke who are from endemic regions should be screened for T cruzi infection. The most frequent stroke syndrome seen in patients with Chagas disease is partial anterior circulation infarction. Stroke recurrence has been estimated to occur in 20% of patients, and secondary prevention measures include chronic anticoagulation in cardioembolic chagasic stroke. So far, no studies have been done to assess the effect of chagasic stroke on vascular dementia.

source: lancet