00:00To some health news, a deadly illness that is spread by the Tsetse fly could soon be eliminated as a
00:07public health threat.
00:08Sleeping sickness is a lethal disease and has killed hundreds of thousands of people across several African countries over the
00:15past century.
00:16And the parasite still persists in remote parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
00:21But a new drug developed by DNDI in Sanofi could help halt the spread.
00:27To discuss this further, we can bring in Dr. Luis Pizarro, the Executive Director of DNDI.
00:34Dr. Pizarro, welcome to the program.
00:39Hello. Thank you for inviting us today.
00:42Now, doctor, I want to start and ask you, how big a threat is sleeping sickness to public health?
00:51Sleep in sickness has been a horrible disease through the last century.
01:00Thousands and thousands of people have died from sleep in sickness.
01:04Thanks to the work, you know, our colleagues are doing today in countries like Congo or Guinea, fortunately, almost between
01:15500 and 1,000 people are being infected by sleep in sickness today.
01:22So we are improving the situation, but it's still a deadly disease.
01:30And this is why we're so happy today to be able to bring with this new drug.
01:36Now, as you just mentioned, your company did help to develop this new treatment.
01:41It's, as I understand, just a single dose.
01:44Can you tell us how it works?
01:47Yes, in the past, the drugs that were used to cure sleep in sickness were horrible drugs.
01:55Some of them were done with arsenic and could even kill the patient.
02:01Then we were able to improve this and bring safe drugs, but that were very complex in terms of logistic.
02:09And as you know, maybe sleep in sickness is affecting people in very remote areas.
02:16So we needed something very simple that will be heat stable, easy to give to patients and without hospitalization.
02:25So now Acuzibarol, it's a tablet.
02:29You take one dose and you are cured for all the stages of the disease.
02:35So it's really a revolution in the interest of the patients.
02:41Now, you mentioned there a couple of the other treatments.
02:44I was also reading about that one with arsenic that did sound truly horrible.
02:49So if we're looking at your new drug, how effective is it?
02:53How does it stack up to previous treatments?
02:57This is also why it is a revolution, because it's going to cure all the stages of the disease.
03:07At the moment, it has been validated for adults and, let's say, children that are under 12 years old and
03:16more than 40 kilograms.
03:18But we are now, in parallel, conducting clinical trials in Congo today to be able to prove that this drug
03:29is also safe for children.
03:32So that's going to be the next step.
03:35It's not only with this drug cure all the adult patients, but being able to propose this also for children.
03:44Now, I understand, doctor, that if the sleeping sickness is left untreated, it's almost always fatal.
03:52So with this new drug that's coming out that's just been developed, how many lives do you think can be
03:58saved?
04:01If we think that today, let's say, almost between, as I said, 500, 1,000 people are infected by the
04:10parasite every year.
04:12And if we want to go to elimination of this disease in Africa, I think it's very important to show
04:19that this drug is not going to cure only the 500 or 1,000 people that are infected.
04:25But this drug will contribute to the public health approach we're putting in place, of course, with Sanofi, who is
04:33developing this drug with us, but also with the World Health Organization and all the ministries of health in the
04:40countries that are affected.
04:41Our intention is to save lives, but also to eliminate the disease in Africa.
04:49So make that, you know, those countries that are sometimes in very fragile situations will not have to fight, as
04:59they are doing today, against the disease.
05:02Now, as you were mentioning, it's still out there.
05:06Sleeping sickness is still out there.
05:08There are these other treatments working to help people get better.
05:12But why has it been so hard to eradicate this disease?
05:18I think this is a very important message I would like to deliver today, because we have seen now that,
05:27well, so difficult and bad news around us all the time.
05:33And we see that if we are able here to bring different partners, we talked about Sanofi and WHO, but
05:43also ministries of health, foundations, research colleagues that have decided to work on this.
05:50It's possible to address a disease that was not interesting, the classical R&D research and development system that most
06:01of the time is driven by profit, by the interest, right, to make profit, financial profit.
06:08And here those patients, well, they live, as I said, in very remote areas.
06:13They are sometimes in very poor conditions.
06:16So they are not the main objective of the traditional research and development model.
06:23So what we have shown here is that if we decide to work all together, it's possible to have an
06:30alternative model and address the patient needs.
06:34And this is the real mission of the NDI.
06:37And one final question for you.
06:40I understand that this was once studied for cancer treatment.
06:44Now the European Medicines Agency has just given it a positive opinion.
06:50So what happens next?
06:53Yeah, it was very important for us to really prioritize the access of this drug as soon as possible for
07:02the patients.
07:03So the European Agency gave the green light.
07:07Now the World Health Organization is going to include this drug into their guidelines.
07:14Every country will include this drug in the national guidelines.
07:19Sanofi will offer the drug to WHO that will make this drug available for all the patients in each country
07:28that is affected today by sleep and sickness.
07:31So in the next months, all the countries affected by sleep and sickness will be able to propose this for
07:39everyone who is infected.
07:42Dr. Luis Pizarro, thank you so much for speaking with us today, sharing your expertise.
07:47That's the executive director of DNDI.
Comments