A new pill being developed to treat intestinal worms has shown promising results in trials and could help eliminate parasitic infections that affect about 1.5 billion people globally, researchers said.
The mango-flavored pill is a combination of two existing anti-parasitic drugs, and using them together appears to be more effective in getting rid of worms.
These worms are acquired through contact with food or water contaminated with soil contaminated with worm eggs, and infection causes severe gastrointestinal symptoms, malnutrition, and anemia.
Researchers say the pill could help overcome any future drug resistance issues and better manage the disease on a large scale.
Parasites, also known as soil-transmitted helminths (STHs), include whipworm and hookworm, and are endemic in many developing countries where hygiene levels are poor.
Many of those affected are children, and there is no preventive treatment other than improving sanitation.
According to a study called “ALIVE”published in The Lancet, these new pills could help the most affected countries achieve the goals they have set Global Health Organization To eliminate diseases.
It will be taken as a fixed dose of one or three tablets over successive days.
Researchers from eight European and African institutions say this method would be a simple way to treat large numbers of people in group therapy programmes.
“It's easy to take, because it's just one pill,” says project leader Professor Jose Muñoz.
“We also hope that combining two drugs with different mechanisms of action will reduce the risk of parasites becoming drug-resistant,” says Professor Muñoz.
Once a person is infected, the parasites take root in the person's digestive system.
While albendazole is good at treating some types of STH, it appears to be becoming less effective at treating others.
During a clinical trial that included 1,001 children between the ages of 5 and 18 in Ethiopia, Kenya and Mozambique, it was found to be more effective in treating more types of infections when combined with the drug ivermectin.
However, the researchers said the results were inconclusive about how well the threadworm treatment worked.
Professor Hani Al-Sheikha, a parasitology expert at the University of Nottingham, said the pill could represent a “significant improvement compared to other treatments” and could be used against multiple parasites.
“There are some challenges with existing medications…so this could be a big, big plus.”
However, he said that although the study was “promising,” it had “some shortcomings.”
“We don't know whether the results will be the same for adults, mature adults, younger children and people in other parts of the world.”
The trial results have been submitted to regulators in Europe and Africa, and decisions are expected in early 2025.
Participants are now being recruited to participate in another trial of 20,000 people in Kenya and Ghana.
Dr Stella Kiva, a researcher at the Kenya Medical Research Institute who worked on the study, said the pill had “great potential to improve the health of affected communities” but there was still “work to do” to spread the treatment widely.
