Could drug reformulation provide new treatment for river blindness and elephantiasis?

9 Feb 2010

Paul Chinnock

Source: Michigan State University (see original article)

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Professor Charles Mackenzie in Tanzania working with patients with lymphatic filariasis.

Onchocerciasis (river blindness) and lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis) are serious neglected parasitic conditions that are still common in many tropical countries. They are both caused by microscopic filarial worms. Treatments are available and their use has improved the control of both infections. However, the drugs presently used are by no means ideal and research is required to develop alternatives. Now a US scientist is to receive $2 million to investigate the potential use of the drug flubendazole.

Flubendazole is already widely used to treat worm infestations in animals but when, in the 1980s, it was given by mouth to human patients with filarial infection it was ineffective and caused severe abscesses. Professor Charles Mackenzie at Michigan State University (MSU) believes that the oil-based formulation of the drug may have been responsible for its disappointing performance. He has been granted an award to develop a new way to safely administer the drug.

“The technology we have today is leaps and bounds ahead of what we were using in the 1980s,” says Professor Mackenzie. “If we can reformulate the drug and easily administer it, we can make meeting the World Health Organization’s goal of eradicating filarial diseases a reality.”

The $2 million award comes from a $13 million grant the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis has received from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

MSU, Washington University, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, USA and McGill University in Montreal, Canada are all working on projects with funding from the grant. The overall grant will fund two other projects:

Researchers at Washington University will test the costs and benefits of twice-yearly mass drug administration versus the currently standard annual treatment. The project will include two regions in equatorial Africa where persons with lymphatic filariasis also may be infected with another filarial worm that previously prevented mass drug administration programmes from taking place.
Scientists at Case Western will conduct two clinical trials of different treatments for lymphatic filariasis and one trial of new treatments for onchocerciasis. The scientists will take existing drugs and give them in different doses and combinations to see if they are more effective than current treatments.