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Praziquantel is the drug of choice to treat schistosomiasis, but it is unsuitable for the treatment of pre-school aged children (under 5 years of age) due to its size and bitter taste. This leads to an estimated 50 million children currently going untreated.
Countries: Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda
Implementing partners: Astellas, AIHD, Farmanguinhos, KEMRI University, Lygature, Merck, Ministries of Health (CIV, Kenya & Uganda), Makerere University, Swiss TPH, TUM, UFHB and Unlimit Health
Funders: EDCTP is a public-public partnership between countries in Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, supported by the European Union.
GHIT Fund is an international public-private partnership between the Government of Japan (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare), seven Japanese pharmaceutical and diagnostics companies (Astellas, Chugai, Eisai, Daiichi Sankyo, Shionogi, Sysmex and Takeda), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and United Nations Development Programme.
Project value: €5.7 million from EDCTP and €2.1 million from GHIT Fund.
Timescale: 2021-2025 (EDCTP), 2021-2022 (GHIT Fund)
The Pediatric Praziquantel Consortium (PPC) was founded in 2012 as the first international not-for-profit partnership that aims to reduce the global disease burden of schistosomiasis by addressing the medical need of infected preschool-aged children.
It aims to develop, register and provide access to a new orally dispersible formulation of praziquantel suitable for children aged 3 months to 5 years of age. The new formulation is small, has an acceptable taste and can withstand the challenges presented by warm weather, thus enabling access by children currently not receiving treatment.
The Consortium is divided into two core teams:
The Consortium partners have been awarded two implementation research grants by the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) and the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT). The implementation research program aims to introduce the new pediatric formulation that will be crucial to getting treatments to those in need.