Could a mango-flavored pill kill intestinal worms?

A new tablet being developed to cure intestinal worms has shown promising results in trials and could help eradicate the parasitic infection, which affects about 1.5 billion people worldwide, researchers say.

The mango-flavored pill is a combination of two existing antiparasitic drugs that, used together, appear to be more effective in eliminating worms.

These worms are contracted through contact with food or water that has been infected by soil contaminated with worm eggs, and infections cause severe gastrointestinal symptoms, malnutrition, and anemia.

Researchers say the pill could help overcome any future drug resistance problems and better control the disease on a large scale.

The parasites, also known as soil-transmitted helminths (STH), include whipworms and hookworms and are endemic in many developing countries where hygiene levels are poor.

Many of those affected are children and there is no preventative treatment other than better sanitation.

According to a study, called “ALIVE”Published in The Lancet, this new pill could help the most affected countries reach the goals established by the World Health Organization to eliminate diseases.

It would be taken as a fixed dose of a single pill or three tablets over consecutive days.

Researchers from eight European and African institutions say it would be a simple way to cure large numbers of people in mass treatment programs.

“It is easy to administer, since it is a single pill,” says the project leader, Professor José Muñoz.

“In addition, we hope that the combination of two drugs with different mechanisms of action will reduce the risk of parasites becoming resistant to the drugs,” says Professor Muñoz.

Once a person is infected, the parasites take root in their digestive tract.

While the drug albendazole is good at treating some species of STH, it appears to become less effective at fighting others.

During a clinical trial involving 1,001 children aged 5 to 18 in Ethiopia, Kenya and Mozambique, it was found to be more effective on more types of infections when combined with the drug ivermectin.

However, researchers said the results were inconclusive about how well it treated pinworm.

Professor Hany Elsheikha, a parasitology expert at the University of Nottingham, said the pill could represent a “significant improvement on other treatments” and could be used against multiple parasites.

“There are some challenges with existing medications…so this could be a very, very important addition.”

However, he said that while the study was “promising,” it had “some gaps.”

“We don’t know if the results would be the same for adults, mature people, younger children and people from other parts of the world.”

The trial results have been submitted to regulators in Europe and Africa, with decisions expected in early 2025.

Participants are now being recruited to take part in another trial with 20,000 people in Kenya and Ghana.

Dr Stella Kepha, 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 be done” to widely implement it. the treatment.