River Blindness News and Research

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River Blindness or onchocerciasis is caused by the prelarval (microfilaria) and adult stages of the filarial nematode Onchocerca volvulus. The disease is transmitted by the bite of certain species of female Simulium flies (black flies) that bite by day and are found near rapidly flowing rivers and streams. Onchocerciasis is endemic in more than 25 nations located in a broad band across the central part of Africa. Small endemic foci are also present in the Arabian Peninsula (Yemen) and in the Americas (Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, southern Mexico, and Venezuela)

FDA accepts Topaz's ivermectin NDA for treatment for head lice infestations

Topaz Pharmaceuticals Inc., a privately held specialty pharmaceutical company, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted for filing the New Drug Application (NDA) for the use of ivermectin topical cream as a treatment for head lice infestations in children and adults.

7 Jun 2011

GlobalPost examines Pres. Obama's Global Health Initiative

GlobalPost has published two articles on President Barack Obama's Global Health Initiative. "In a series of reports over the coming months from Washington and in capitals around the world, GlobalPost will examine the behind-the-scenes decisions in the Obama administration as well as what diplomats and health experts are doing now in several countries to try to bring to life this new, but what some say is a stumbling approach in global health," the publication writes.

11 May 2011

Anacor Pharma, MMV enter agreement to develop AN3661 for malaria treatment

Anacor Pharmaceuticals announced today that it has entered into a development agreement with Medicines for Malaria Venture to develop Anacor's compound AN3661 for the treatment of malaria.

18 Mar 2011

Anacor and iOWH establish research agreement to identify new drugs for shigellosis

Anacor Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ANAC) and the Institute for OneWorld Health (iOWH) today announced the establishment of a joint research agreement to discover antibacterial compounds for treating shigellosis.

8 Mar 2011

Scientist receives grant for research on parasitic diseases through African biodiversity medicines

McGill University and McGill University scientist Dr. Timothy Geary received a $1-million grant today for landmark research into addressing parasitic diseases through medicines derived from African biodiversity.

25 Jan 2011

Antibiotic treatment may be sufficient to overcome River Blindness

The team found that a bacterium inside the worm acts as a 'disguise' for the parasite, resulting in the immune system reacting to it in an ineffective way. The bacteria protect the worm from the body's natural defences, but once the bacteria are removed with antibiotics, the immune system responds appropriately, releasing cells, called eosinophils, that kill the worm.

13 Jan 2011

Opinions: Kangaroo care; NTDs, Women's health

New York Times contributing writer Tina Rosen, on the newspaper's "Opinionator" blog, examines the success of a system known as kangaroo care, which has helped to improve the survival rates of premature infants by using skin-to-skin contact with mothers in place of incubators in low-resource settings. The post notes the potential value of such a strategy in poor countries "where pregnant women are unlikely to get the food and care they need," and "low birth weight babies are very common."

16 Dec 2010

Three-day meeting on eliminating river blindness kicks off in Nigeria

A three-day meeting of the WHO African Program for Onchocerciasis (River blindness) Control (WHO/APOC) opened in Abuja, Nigeria, on Tuesday, PANA/Afrique en ligne reports (12/8).

10 Dec 2010

Anacor, UCSF and NYBC collaborate to discover drug therapies for river blindness

Anacor Pharmaceuticals, the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Sandler Center and the Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute (LFKRI) of the New York Blood Center (NYBC) today announced the establishment of a research and development collaboration to discover new drug therapies for the treatment of river blindness (onchocerciasis), a parasitic disease that is the second leading cause of infectious blindness worldwide, and is most prevalent in Africa.

1 Dec 2010

Report documents increase in R&D projects on developing world diseases

Drugmakers are now working on over 100 R&D projects designed to tackle diseases of the developing world and almost 80% of them are being carried out with non-industry partners, according to a report released on Wednesday by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA).

15 Nov 2010

Carter Center, Merck take steps to prevent river blindness in Latin America

Public health officials at the 20th Inter-American Conference on Onchocerciasis in Antigua, Guatemala, confirmed that more than one-third of all Latin Americans who ran the risk of contracting river blindness (onchocerciasis), a leading cause of preventable blindness, are no longer at risk.

12 Nov 2010

Discovery of anti-parasitic drug mechanism could lead to new treatments for filarial diseases

In a major breakthrough that comes after decades of research and nearly half a billion treatments in humans, scientists have finally unlocked how a key anti-parasitic drug kills the worms brought on by the filarial diseases river blindness and elephantitis.

11 Nov 2010

Issuing first report on NTDS, WHO aims for 'complete control' by 2015

The WHO said on Thursday that it was aiming for 'complete control' by 2015 of tropical diseases that affect one billion impoverished people and kill an estimated 534,000 people each year, Agence France-Presse reports.

15 Oct 2010

Scientists develop first screening method to identify river blindness disease

Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have developed the first screening method that rapidly identifies individuals with active river blindness, a parasitic disease that afflicts an estimated 37 million people. The test could change the current strategy of mass treatment in areas where river blindness, also known as onchocerciasis, is suspected.

7 Oct 2010

Merck and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation commit additional $60M to support Botswana's ACHAP

Merck today announced the Merck Company Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are committing an additional $60 million to support Botswana's African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships (ACHAP). Merck is known as MSD outside the US and Canada. A unique program developed with and led by the Government of Botswana, ACHAP is one of sub-Saharan Africa's oldest, most successful public-private partnerships.

24 Aug 2010

Study finds evidence that single-disease initiatives may compromise fragile health systems in low-income countries

Single-disease initiatives in low-income countries with fragile health systems may compromise the ability of such health systems to meet the other community needs, according to a study published Tuesday in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, VaccineNewsDaily.com reports (Purlain, 8/18).

20 Aug 2010

Scientists produce atlas of worm infection prevalence, distribution throughout Africa

On Tuesday at the 12th International Congress of Parasitology, a group of scientists, led by researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, launched an online series of maps showing the distribution and prevalence of worm infections across Africa, Tropika.net reports (Chinnock, 8/17).

19 Aug 2010

Opinions: Aid to Pakistan; Criteria for effective aid

A New York Times editorial about the flooding in Pakistan and the global response to it, cautions: "The world, especially the United States, must not blow this one. We worry it already could be doing that."

18 Aug 2010

EFINTD awards 850,000 Euros for medical research on neglected tropical diseases in Africa

More than one billion people all over the world suffer from tropical diseases which are mostly unknown to the wider public and have also been neglected economically. In a joint effort with four other European foundations, the Volkswagen Foundation has opened a second round of funding for African scientists conducting research on these neglected diseases.

27 Jul 2010

Drosophila fly study may aid in staving off diseases in humans using defensive bacteria

It has been a basic principle of evolution for more than a century that plants and animals can adapt genetically in ways that help them better survive and reproduce.

12 Jul 2010