Schistosomiasis

• On December 15, the Consortium announced that the European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has adopted a positive scientific opinion for arpraziquantel to treat schistosomiasis in preschool-aged children.
• Present in 78 countries and endemic in 51, schistosomiasis affects more than 240 million people, about 50 million of whom are preschool-aged children.
• Extending the range of options for the treatment of schistosomiasis, arpraziquantel is tailored for preschool-aged children against Schistosoma mansoni and Schistosoma haematobium.
• Its mission is to develop, register, and provide access to a suitable pediatric drug for treating schistosomiasis in children 3 months to 6 years of age.

• Wild fires create their own weather systems, generating fire storms with devastating effects.
• Global warming will increase the number of days of shimmering heat, creating the ideal conditions for fire.
• Global warming and El Niño combined suggest that the years ahead will result in increasing, devastating impacts.

Heat, air quality and health

• High temperatures cause heat stroke, heat exhaustion, heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular disease.
• People in informal settlements, and badly maintained and crowded buildings, are especially vulnerable to heat stress.

Less food, lower nutrition

• In South Africa, drought recurrently affects subsistence agriculture, livestock and commercial crops.
• The impact of drought on food and nutrition will be felt by the most vulnerable, including infants, small children and pregnant women and those who already live on or below the poverty line.
• Crop failure and drought, combined with increased food costs associated with disruptions to global food resources, will affect every one of us.

Every drop counts

• Humans require adequate hydration to survive, and the combination of increasing temperatures and water shortages heightens the risk of organ failure and death.
• In addition, dependence on poor quality and contaminated water has an impact on household and personal hygiene, and intestinal infections.

Neglected diseases

• Other viral and bacterial infectious diseases, especially prevalent in Africa, are also likely to increase with global warming.
• Bundled together as “neglected diseases of poverty”, these include both parasitic and viral vector borne diseases such as Rift Valley fever, malaria, filariasis, schistosomiasis, dengue fever, chikungunya and influenza as well as arboviruses such as different influenza pathogens.

So where does this leave us?

• When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established in 1988, we had a choice to interrupt climate change and slow global warming.
• This does not mean there is nothing we can do to halt the destruction of planetary life.

• Among the 134 household contacts of infected household members who had received SCB-2019, there was one case of COVID-19; among the 250 household contacts of infected household members who were not vaccinated, there were 12 cases.
• There were no cases of symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection among household contacts who were partially or fully vaccinated and where the infected household member was vaccinated with SCB-2019.
• This indicates that SCB-2019 vaccination reduced household transmission and that vaccinated household contacts also likely benefited from the protection provided by their own vaccination.
• The study team was blinded to the assignment of SPECTRA participants to vaccine or placebo groups.

• Global Access Health (GAH), a social enterprise dedicated to providing affordable medical products for global health, today formally introduced its first portfolio company, Global Access Diagnostics (GADx).
• GADx has been created to address gaps in the global provision of diagnostics with a focus on expanding affordable access to quality tests.
• The Company combines expertise in rapid diagnostics development from Mologic Ltd with low-cost manufacturing and scale-up capability of sister company, Global Access Diagnostics (GAD).
• Through this transaction, the group acquired Mologic and GAD to harness industry-leading expertise in developing and manufacture of rapid diagnostic technologies.