IDRI Awarded $7 Million Grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to Fight Visceral Leishmaniasis in Africa
New diagnostic and care management tools are urgently needed to fight
one of the most neglected parasitic diseases.
Seattle, December 18, 2008
IDRI (Infectious Disease Research Institute) today announced it has received a 3-year, $7 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop new methods of diagnosis and care management for patients in Africa who are infected with Leishmania donovani – the parasite that causes visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in the region.
Visceral leishmaniasis is a serious, potentially lethal, systemic parasitic illness that has caused epidemics in India, Africa, and Latin America. Leishmania parasites are transmitted to humans through the bite of infected sandflies. Patients with VL develop infections of their liver, spleen, and bone marrow and may die if the infection goes untreated. About 500,000 new cases of VL occur each year, and 10% of these patients - mostly children - die because their disease cannot be accurately diagnosed in a timely fashion.
“Effective diagnostic tools are critical to fight debilitating diseases, like visceral leishmaniasis, that afflict the world’s poorest people,” said Deborah Burgess, Senior Program Officer, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “IDRI’s work to develop accurate, affordable and simple diagnostic tests could facilitate early detection of VL, making current treatments more effective and decreasing transmission rates.”
Most VL cases occur in poor populations living in remote areas far from healthcare centers where the disease often co-exists with malaria and other debilitating parasitic infections that exhibit similar symptoms, making diagnosis difficult. In these challenging conditions, traditional labor-intensive and complex diagnostic procedures – invasive removal of bone marrow, spleen, and lymph node tissues for microscopic examination and isolation of the parasite by culture – are simply not feasible.
Ajay Bhatia, the Principal Investigator for the project at IDRI, commented: “Several diagnostic tests for leishmaniasis have been developed that are based on the detection of antibodies in the serum, but none are sufficiently accurate, rapid or affordable to reliably diagnose the disease in this setting. We will work to develop new tools specifically designed to meet the needs of the African population.”
In addition to diagnosing VL disease, new tests are also needed to better monitor the efficacy of treatment and to determine when a patient is cured. Such tests should also allow clinicians to identify immunocompromised patients infected with Leishmania parasites, as well as to distinguish between infected and cured individuals.
“In the difficult and complex task of controlling VL in Africa, better diagnostics and tests of cure will be critical. We take pride in leading the fight against a disease that has been largely ignored for many years,” said Steven Reed, Founder and Head of IDRI's Research and Development Program.
IDRI has been working on leishmaniasis for more than 15 years, applying its expertise to the development of both vaccines and diagnostics. IDRI is actively developing a therapeutic leishmaniasis vaccine designed to be used in conjunction with chemotherapy. This candidate vaccine is currently being tested in several countries. If successful, both diagnostic and therapeutic tools would complement each other to provide an improved strategy against leishmaniasis.
About IDRI
IDRI is a Seattle-based not-for-profit organization committed to applying innovative science to the research and development of products to prevent, detect, and treat infectious diseases of poverty. By integrating capabilities, IDRI strives to create an efficient pathway bringing scientific innovation from the lab to the people who need it most. For more information, go to www.idri.org.
Contact:
Alice Grasset 206-330-2553 or agrasset@idri.org