30/04/19

Sleeping sickness drug candidate found promising

Technician at Tabitha Medical Clinic in Kibera

Speed read

  • Sleeping sickness is endemic in 36 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Researchers identify the genes from a fungus responsible for producing a candidate drug
  • But further clinical trials in humans are needed to assess efficacy and safety

Send to a friend

The details you provide on this page will not be used to send unsolicited email, and will not be sold to a 3rd party. See privacy policy.

[CAPE TOWN] Researchers have modified the genetic makeup of a fungus into a promising cure for human African trypanosomiasis also known as African sleeping sickness, according to a study.
 
The scientists have produced a drug candidate called ascofuranone that has shown the potential to treat African sleeping sickness, a neglected tropical disease infecting thousands of people in remote, rural locations of Sub-Saharan Africa annually.

According to the WHO sleeping sickness threatens millions of people in 36 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa such as Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Malawi, Nigeria, South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, with over 70 per cent of the reported cases occurring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone in the last decade.    

“One of the major barriers to this drug development is a large-scale production.”

Motomichi Matsuzaki, University of Tokyo

“One of the major barriers to this drug development is a large-scale production,” says Motomichi Matsuzaki, co-author of the study.  
 
Matsuzaki tells SciDev.Net that to use bioengineering ̶ the application of engineering techniques ̶ to mass-produce the drug for clinical trials, researchers have to know what genes of the fungus are used to make the drug.
 
“The fungus does not always produce the drug, so we compared the genes used in a drug-producing condition to those in a non-producing condition, adds Matsuzaki, a research scientist at the University of Tokyo, Japan.  
 
According to Matsuzaki, further research revealed that five out of eight candidate genes as well as three additional genes are responsible for ascofuranone production.
 
The candidate drug completely cured an infected laboratory mouse of the disease after four consecutive days of treatment.
 
“We consider that the experimental result is quite promising although we need to perform clinical trials to ensure safety and effectiveness in humans,” Matsuzaki explains.
 
The drug development could take 10 to 15 years and funding, he says.
 
“Large-scale fermentation with further modified A. egyptiacum will cut the cost of production,” adds Matsuzaki. “We can only say ascofuranone will reduce the burden of sleeping sickness in Sub-Saharan Africa after first conducting human trial.”
 
Wilfried Mutombo, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative’s sleeping sickness project coordinator in the Democratic Republic of Congo, welcomes the findings of the study but tells SciDev.Net that the best treatment for the disease must be an oral drug.

“It is easier for patients to take and for medical staff to administer, manage and transport to very remote areas, where most of the patients live,” says Mutombo, who has treated more than 3,000 patients of sleeping sickness since 2006.
 
“Patients are likely to be more compliant as the drug is easier to take,” he explains, adding that the current treatment is complicated and costly as it involves long hospital stays.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Sub-Saharan Africa English desk.

References