Brasília – Brazil has created and will produce a vaccine against Schistosomiasis, a chronic illness caused by the Schistosoma parasite found in areas that lack basic sanitation. This Tuesday (12th) in Rio de Janeiro, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) issued the results of clinical safety testing for the vaccine developed by the Experimental Schistosomiasis Laboratory of Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (IOC/Fiocruz).
To Fiocruz, the discovery is a great achievement of Brazilian scientists, because the disease affects 200 million people in poor areas of the world, and can potentially infect 800 million people who are exposed to contagion risks in Brazil (especially in the Northeast and in the state of Minas Gerais), in African countries, and in Central America.
Schistosomiasis is considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the second most devastating parasitic disease, the first being malaria. “It is a disease of poor countries, associated with extreme poverty,” says Miriam Tendler, the head of the Experimental Schistosomiasis Laboratory in an interview to Agência Brasil. By her calculations, within five years at most it will be possible to immunize the populations of places where the disease is endemic.
The announcement made in Rio concerns the completion of the safety and effectiveness testing phases – which are required before large-scale production is authorized. Twenty volunteers participated in the testing which confirmed the vaccine’s safety in Brazil. Its effectiveness had already been proven in laboratory tests with mammals.
“You have information which concerns efficacy, which are called immunogenicity. The vaccine induced an excellent immune response, which is what we want in vaccinated individuals,” said Miriam Tendler.
According to the researcher, in addition to being effective, “it is a safe vaccine.” To her, “this safety is the best attribute a vaccine can have. Large-scale testing can only be carried out once safety has been confirmed,” she explained. The large-scale tests will be conducted in Brazil and Africa.
The research to produce the schistosomiasis vaccine started in 1975 at Fiocruz. During the first decade of research, the Brazilian scientists were able to identify the active principle that could exert a pharmacological effect against the parasite. In the second decade of work, the (S14) protein, also present in other parasites, was located. This discovery enables the production of a polyvalent vaccine – i.e. one that prevents other parasitic diseases, including those that affect livestock.
In the 1990s, Brazil filed the first patent application for the discoveries, and in the 2000s, by means of a public-private partnership (PPP), with backing from the Studies and Projects Funding Body (Finep), a business model was created that allowed for the industrialization of the vaccine whose safety was announced this Tuesday.
Miriam Tendler calculates that the results could have been obtained ten years ago, and ascribes the long duration of the research work to financing discontinuation and institutional organization issues. “Actually making a product within an academic institution is very complex, complicated thing. Thus, the PPPs are crucial.” The researcher does not know how much the vaccine’s development cost over the course of more than three decades.
Schistosomiasis (also known as Bilharziosis) is caused by six different species of the Schistosoma parasite. The typical cycle of disease starts with the contamination of water by human faeces infected with the parasite’s eggs converted into Trematodes (larvae). These larvae then infect snails, multiply, return to the water and infect people through the skin.
Contaminated persons may feel headaches, weakness, difficulty breathing, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, and coughing blood. The disease can affect the liver, the kidneys, the bladder, the lungs, the medulla, and the brain, and may cause death. The treatment is made using antiparasitic drugs. A new contamination may occur even after treatment.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
