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Manuel Elkin Patarroyo announced that the Colfavac vaccine will be tested in humans in that continent.
After 35 years of research, the Colombian scientist Manuel Elkin Patarroyo and his team at the Foundation Institute of Immunology of Colombia (Fidic) are getting ready to try their new malaria vaccine in humans in seven countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.
The announcement was made at the second International Conference on Research and Development of Vaccines, organized by the United Scientific Group of the United States, the University of Rosario, the University of Applied and Environmental Sciences (Udca) and Fidic, which was held in Cartagena last week with the attendance of more than 150 scientists of 24 countries.
At the event, where global advances in immunizations for diseases such as zika, chikunguna and tuberculosis were presented, the scientific community supported the results of Patarroyo’s vaccine, which at the laboratory offers consistent protection of 81.7 percent against the parasite Plasmodium Falciparum that causes most of malaria cases.
The vaccine, that now will be called Colombian Falciparum Vaccine (Colfavac), was made from the synthetic model, created by the Colombian immunologist based on the identification and manufacture of the parasite chemical particles that promote defense responses that are activated in the body when the parasite invades it.
According to Patarroyo, the fundamental difference of this vaccine from others that have already been tried with the same purpose “is that while other groups of researchers were looking for vaccines by using biological methods, that is, working with live, mutated, modified or inactive parasites, we followed a completely different path, our own and unexplored path, which led us to the already mentioned results: that of chemistry”, he said.
Although trials have been made in Aotus monkeys, according to the experts the results at that level are the most advanced reached so far. “The results obtained up to now by Manuel, of which I am a witness since long time ago, are spectacular, out of the ordinary” said Ana Fliser, former president of the International Congress of Parasitology.
All steps taken in the search of this vaccine have been published since 1989 in magazines of high scientific impact, such as Nature, Chemical Reviews and Account of Chemical Research. “Here we are not improvising or offering something that has not been endorsed logically and sequentially by peers of very high level”emphasizes Patarroyo.
Jorge Kalil, Director of the Butatan Institute of Brazil and former president of the International Congress on Immunology, agrees with that, and he states that he has been aware of the work of Fidic for 25 years and he is certain that it is going on the right path, “so much that we are doing the same thing”he emphasizes, making reference to the use of principles to manufacture chemical vaccines.
The ultimate challenge
Although the Fidic group has focused on reaching 100 percent of effectiveness in this vaccine at the laboratory, some think that this is already a fact, given the advances presented, because the bases are given. “There is not much to find, in addition to the results of professor Patarroyo”said Belkis de Noya, director of the Parasitology Institute Felix Pifano in Venezuela.
But the acid test for this process of more than three decades are the results in humans, much more when projects that had the same purpose, such as the publicized malaria vaccine RTS-SAS01, developed with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation after an investment of several million dollars, did not have the expected results, as published in the New England Journal of Medicine last June. Added to that are some disappointing results such as those achieved with vaccines that intended to protect against tuberculosis and AIDS.
Therefore, the scientific world is waiting for the call made by the governments of Senegal and Ghana to start the administration of Colfavac in those countries, request that has also been made by five more countries. “We expect to start soon with the vaccines of professor Patarroyo and his team”said Kwadwo Koram, director of the Noguchi Institute at the University of Ghana.
This is a pioneering vaccine, not only for the impact that it would have on global public health – given that malaria affects 214 million people every year with 438,000 deaths in the same period-but also because of the way it was developed.
So far, despite the efforts of researchers all over the world, it has not been possible to get an effective vaccine against this disease, among other reasons because it has been difficult to identify the mechanism through which the parasite fools the body so it will not generate the necessary defenses against it.
For three decades and a half, Patarroyo and his team focused on unraveling that process; to achieve it they had to look for elemental particles or molecules that allow the microorganism to affect the cells.
Having done that, they reproduced them at the laboratory one by one, they introduced modifications and eliminated those with the capability to mutate to prevent their mimicking and so the body would be able to identify them and generate defenses against them.
“In this way – says Patarroyo–, when the parasite is inoculated by the Anopheles mosquito, the vaccinated body will prevent it from progressing in the body, just as it was achieved in the work with monkeys”
Gustavo Quintero, Dean of the School of Medicine of the University del Rosario – institution that since 2009 has supported and cofounded Fidic’s vaccines research – states that “the world had never been so close to have a chemical vaccine to fight a global public health problem, such as malaria”.
A disease that can kill
Malaria is a disease caused by the “Plasmodium”parasite, which is inoculated through the bite of the “Anopheles”mosquito, and it is endemic in tropical areas. It can also be transmitted from the mother to the fetus during pregnancy and through transfusions of infected blood.
Those affected have fever, sweating, nausea and vomiting, headaches and muscular pain and bloody stools; occasionally, this disease may progress affecting the whole body and causing death.
According to a report of the World Health Organization on this subject, the number of new cases declined globally from 262 million in 2000 to 214 million in 2015.
Last year, around 438.000 people died from malaria, especially in Africa (89 percent of deaths) and South-East Asia.
It is estimated that 3.200 billion people (almost half of human beings) are exposed to this disease. Up to now, the treatment is based in the administration of anti-malaria drugs and measures to stop the mosquito proliferation.
Seven countries have already requested to host the application
The governments and health authorities of Ghana, Senegal, Cape Verde, Angola and Equatorial Guinea took the initiative facing the vaccine trials, and offered to host these pioneering trials. Ethiopia and Mozambique would join them, as they are in the process of confirmation.
These are developing African countries that have suffered the scourge of infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS and Ebola that decimate their populations and take away millions of years of healthy life, which perpetuates poverty cycles.
It is not for nothing that they follow closely the results of research that can offer solutions to these problems in the world; it is worth to say that for several decades, the research of Patarroyo and his team at Fidic has been published in the most important science magazines of the world.
Claudia Turbay, Colombian Ambassador in Ghana, managed the trip of the researcher to that country, in order to visit him and learn about his situation and start a dialogue with the authorities, whom at the end, through the Presidency and the Ministries of Health and Foreign Affairs of that country supported the research unanimously.
Likewise, the President of Senegal, Macky Sall, through his Minister of Health, Awa Marie Coll-Seck, invited the scientists at Fidic, the dean of Medicine del Rosario, Gustavo Quintero and Spanish researchers of the Atlantic Platform, to start organizing next year the logistics related to the trials.
The Prime Minister of Cape Verde met Patarroyo in Canarias (Spain) and they agreed that by the beginning of 2017 they would start the preliminary trials in that archipelago.
Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon also approached Fidic and el Rosario to travel to those countries.
It is worth noting that the researchers of countries that will host the trials went to Cartagena to settle agreements.
According to Quintero, it is likely that by the end of the first semester 2017, the trials should begin. “El Rosario will accompany professor Patarroyo in this phase of administration of the vaccine, with the support from the Spanish universities Carlos II and Salamanca, with which alliances have already been established”, he said.
Patarroyo is very satisfied to have reached this stage: “It is the most controversial, attacked and denigrated vaccine of all times. There is no other like it in history, maybe because it is the most innovative one”, he said.
CARLOS FRANCISCO FERNÁNDEZ
Medical Editor for EL TIEMPO