Zika Breaking News

ADvantage Therapeutics, Inc. today announced that the first patient was enrolled in the Phase 2b clinical trial on its lead immunotherapy candidate, AD04™, for treating mild Alzheimer's disease (AD).

The study is authorized to be conducted in Austria, France, Poland, Bulgaria, and Slovakia and is expected to expand to Germany and the U.K. in the coming months.

AD04 has been used as an adjuvant in human and animal vaccination programs.

In a previous trial, AD04 serving as a control against another compound demonstrated a statistically significantly slower decline over other treatment groups in cognitive and quality-life clinical measures.

AD04 also showed a slower decline in hippocampal volume as a biomarker.

The Company believes that rather than being limited to a specific aspect of AD pathology, such as amyloid beta or tau, AD04 may address immunological mechanisms in the brain. And AD04 may function as an immunomodulator, stimulating and/or regulating the immune system to reduce AD pathology.

Dr. Andreas Winkler, MSc., principal investigator at Institut Neuromed, commented in a press release on November 27, 2023, "... AD04 represents a significant departure from approaches seen to date and one that may change our understanding of how to manage it as well as the disease itself."

Scientists do not yet fully understand what causes Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s is the most common type of dementia. About forty-four million people worldwide have Alzheimer's Disease, and it is the sixth leading cause of death in industrialized countries. The socio-economic burden of AD is enormous, says the U.S. CDC.

“We consider AD an autoimmune disease,” said Jeffrey Madden, CEO of ADvantage, in May 2023.

“And, instead of going after the consequences of AD, such as tau-protein and amyloid aggregates, we analyze immunological and neuroinflammatory events in specific parts of the brain. We believe these are causes of brain shrinkage and cognitive decline seen in AD.”

As of November 27, 2023, the U.S. FDA, the European Medicines Agency, and the U.K. have not approved an AD preventive vaccine candidate.

As the global dengue virus outbreak continues in about 80 countries with over 4.5 million dengue cases and over 4,000 dengue-related deaths, new data from Florida indicates there may be fewer cases this year.

Florida Health's Mosquito-Borne Disease Surveillance Report #46 confirmed 458 travel-associated dengue cases and 142 locally acquired dengue cases in 2023.

As of November 18, 2023, most of the travel-related dengue cases have been associated with visitors from Cuba (272).

And Miami-Dade Country has confirmed the most local dengue cases (133).

In 2022, Florida reported 903 travel-associated and 68 locally-acquired dengue cases.

From a prevention perspective, the U.S. FDA-approved Dengvaxia® vaccine is available but is seldom administered because of required diagnostic testing.

Dengvaxia (CYD-TDV) is a live attenuated tetravalent chimeric vaccine made using recombinant DNA technology.

Recently, the FDA extended Dengvaxia's approval to include children aged 9–16 years with laboratory-confirmed previous dengue virus infection and living in areas where dengue is endemic.

However, the vaccine is not approved for use in U.S. travelers who are visiting but not living in an area where dengue is common.

Endemic areas can include some U.S. territories and freely associated states.

A new dengue vaccine, QDENGA®, has recently been approved in various countries, without a pre-administration test requirement.

QDENGA (TAK-003) prevents dengue fever and/or severe dengue caused by any of the four serotypes.

The Denpasar City Agriculture Service recently announced villages/sub-districts in Bali Province to form a Rabies Alert Team to suppress cases of rabies transmission in the capital city of Bali Province.

It is estimated that there are 82,195 rabies-transmitting animals in Denpasar City, Indonesia, as of September 2023.

Announced on November 21, 2023, the Head of the Denpasar City Agriculture Service, A.A. Bayu Brahmasta, informed reporters, “The Rabies Alert Team will be tasked with providing education and outreach to the community.”

This news comes from TheBaliSun, which reported two additional residents who live near Keramas Beach were bitten by a dog that has gone on to test positive for rabies.

According to the U.S. CDC, dog rabies outbreaks have been active in Bali since 2008.

Bali is an often-visited destination, hosting over 4.8 million international visitors over the past year.

Each year throughout the world, rabies, a viral disease of mammals, kills approximately 50,000 people, primarily children. It is almost always spread by an animal bite but can also be spread when a rabid animal’s saliva gets directly into the eyes, nose, mouth, or broken skin.

The primary source of human infection worldwide is dogs. However, in the U.S., bats are the source of most rabies infections in 2023.

The CDC says that if your activities bring you into contact with animals, you should consider pre-exposure rabies vaccination, a multi-dose series given before departure overseas.

Even if you receive pre-exposure vaccination, you will still need immediate medical treatment if you are bitten or scratched by an animal.

The good news is human rabies is rare in the U.S., averaging about three cases annually since 2000.

In the U.S., rabies vaccines are available in 2023.

Shanghai Ark Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (ArkBio) today announced that it had received IND approval from the National Medical Products Administration in China for a novel monoclonal antibody AK0610 that was bioengineered based on a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection.

AK0610 specifically targets the RSV pre-F protein.

It demonstrated potent neutralizing effects against RSV both in vitro and in vivo. With a prolonged half-life, it holds promise as a next-generation long-acting antibody for RSV prevention.  

Dr. Jim Wu, chairman and CEO of ArkBio, commented in a press release on November 23, 2023, "We are excited with the IND approval of AK0610 and its great potential in the field of RSV prevention."

"...We will strive to provide very needed RSV high-risk population and patients with efficacious prevention and treatment solutions." 

The discovery and pre-clinical characterization have been published in hLife jointly by Professor George Fu Gao and his team from the Institute of Microbiology, Professor Zhengde Xie and his team from Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University, National Center for Children's Health, China, and ArkBio R&D team.

China has one of the highest rates of lower respiratory tract infection in children caused by RSV, accounting for 18-27% of all hospitalizations in children under five years old due to RSV infections.

ArkBio licensed AK0610 intellectual properties from the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University, National Center for Children's Health, China, followed by further engineering and optimization at ArkBio.

Currently, there is no approved drug for preventing RSV infection in China. 

In the United States, RSV antibody passive immunization products have been U.S. FDA-approved since 1998.

Recently, AstraZeneca and Sanofi co-developed Beyfortus™ monoclonal antibody, which was approved by the FDA to protect infants through their first and second RSV season.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has screened a record number of passengers in 2023 and anticipates airport security checkpoints nationwide will be busier than ever this holiday travel season.

The season kicked off with Thanksgiving travel, which concludes November 28, 203.

Historically, the Sunday following Thanksgiving will likely be the busiest travel day. The TSA expects to screen 30 million passengers this season.

TSA Administrator David Pekoske recently stated, "We are ready for the anticipated volumes and are working closely with our airline and airport partners to ensure we are prepared for this busy holiday travel season."

"We will also do our best to maintain wait time standards of under 10 minutes for TSA PreCheck® lanes and under 30 minutes for standard screening lanes."

"I am grateful for our dedicated employees who remain vigilant and focused on the mission during this holiday travel season and beyond."

The U.S. Department of State and the U.S. CDC publish notices to alert international travelers to various risks.

Furthermore, certain travel vaccinations are recommended before visiting disease outbreak areas, such as Dengue and Zika.

The World Health Organization (WHO) today announced that 331,200 doses of Mosquirix™ RTS, S/AS01, arrived in the Republic of Cameroon.

Mosquirix is a recombinant malaria vaccine with the P. falciparum circumsporozoite protein.

The delivery on November 21, 2023, is the first to a country located on the Gulf of Guinea not previously involved in the WHO malaria vaccine pilot program and signals that scale-up of vaccination against malaria across the highest-risk areas on the African continent will begin shortly.

A further 1.7 million doses of Mosquirix are expected to arrive in Burkina Faso, Liberia, Niger, and Sierra Leone in the coming weeks, with additional African countries set to receive doses in the months ahead.

Since 2019, Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi have been administering the vaccine in a schedule of 4 Mosquirix doses from around five months of age in selected districts as part of the pilot program known as the Malaria Vaccine Implementation Programme (MVIP).

More than 2 million children have been reached with the malaria vaccine in three African countries through MVIP – resulting in a 13% drop in all-cause mortality in children age eligible to receive the vaccine and substantial reductions in severe malaria illness and hospitalizations. 

Nearly every minute, a child under five dies of malaria in Africa.

In 2021, there were 247 million malaria cases globally, which led to 619,000 deaths in about 84 countries.

Of these deaths, 77% were children under five years of age.

Approximately 95% of global malaria cases and 96% of related deaths in 2021.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued various alerts for malaria-endemic countries, including Costa Rica.

The CDC has recently confirmed autochthonous (local) malaria cases in Florida (seven), Texas, Maryland, and Arkansas.

As of November 22, 2023, malaria vaccines are unavailable in the U.S.