First Pill For Dengue Shows Promising Result In Human Challenge Trial

New York: Dengue is assuming more menacing proportions not just in India, but in several other countries as well.

It’s a worry as there is no specific treatment for the vector-borne disease.

However, there’s hope on the horizon as a pill for dengue fever, developed by Johnson & Johnson, has been found to protect against a form of the virus in a handful of patients in a small human challenge trial in the United States, reported Reuters.

There are currently no specific treatments for dengue, a growing disease threat, the company said ahead of presentation of the data at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Annual Meeting in Chicago.

“It is the first ever to show antiviral activity against dengue,” Marnix Van Loock, who oversees emerging pathogens research for J & J’s Janssen division, said of the drug.

In a human challenge trial, researchers intentionally expose healthy volunteers to a pathogen to test a vaccine or treatment, or better understand the disease they cause.

In the J & J trial done with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 10 volunteers were given a high dose of the dengue pill five days before being injected with a type of dengue. They continued to take the pill for 21 days afterwards.

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Six of the 10 showed no detectable dengue virus in their blood after being exposed to the pathogen, as well as no sign that their immune system had responded to infection by the virus over 85 days of monitoring.

Six people in a placebo group, who were also injected with dengue, all showed detectable virus when tested.

The early data, presented at American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene annual meeting in Chicago on Friday, is positive and supports ongoing Phase 2 trials of the pill to prevent four different types of dengue in a real world-setting where the disease is common.

The next step will be testing it as a treatment, said J & J.

According to the company, the drug works by blocking the action of two viral proteins, preventing the virus from making copies of itself. It was well-tolerated by all trial participants.

Asia and Latin America have been witnessing millions of infections every year and thousands of deaths.

According to World Health Organization (WHO) chief scientist Jeremy Farrar, it is likely to spread further as climate change makes more areas hospitable for mosquitoes that spread it.