{"id":19781,"date":"2025-01-10T23:58:28","date_gmt":"2025-01-11T00:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=19781"},"modified":"2025-01-11T01:30:31","modified_gmt":"2025-01-11T01:30:31","slug":"could-a-mango-flavoured-pill-end-intestinal-worms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=19781","title":{"rendered":"Could a mango-flavoured pill end intestinal worms?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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 globally, researchers say.<\/p>\n

The mango-flavoured pill is a combination of two existing anti-parasitic drugs that, used together, appear more effective in getting rid of worms.<\/p>\n

These worms are caught through contact with food or water that has been infected by soil contaminated with worm eggs and infections cause severe gastrointestinal symptoms, malnutrition and anaemia. <\/p>\n

Researchers say the pill could help overcome any future drug resistance problems and better manage the disease on a large scale.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The parasites, also known as soil-transmitted helminths (STHs), include whipworm and hookworm and are endemic in many developing countries where hygiene levels are poor. <\/p>\n

Many of those affected are children and there is no preventative treatment other than better sanitation.<\/p>\n

According a study, called “ALIVE”<\/a>, published in the Lancet, this new pill could help countries most affected reach goals set by the World Health Organization <\/a>to eliminate the diseases.<\/p>\n

It would be taken as a fixed-dose of of either one single pill or three tablets over consecutive days.<\/p>\n

Researchers from eight European and African institutions say it would be a simple way to cure large numbers of people in mass treatment programmes.<\/p>\n

“It is easy to administer, as it is one single pill,” says project leader Prof Jose Mu\u00f1oz.<\/p>\n

“Also, we hope that combining two drugs with different mechanisms of action will reduce the risk of the parasites becoming drug-resistant,” Prof Mu\u00f1oz says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Once a person is infected, the parasites root themselves in people’s digestive tracts.<\/p>\n

While the drug albendazole is good at treating some species of STH, it appears to be becoming less effective in tackling some others.<\/p>\n

During a clinical trial involving 1,001 children aged between 5-18 in Ethiopia, Kenya and Mozambique, it was found to be more effective on more types of infection when combined with the drug ivermectin.<\/p>\n

However, researchers said the results were not conclusive on how well it treated threadworm.<\/p>\n

Prof. Hany Elsheikha, an expert in parasitology at the University of Nottingham said the pill could be a “significant improvement over other treatments” and could be used against multiple parasites.<\/p>\n

“There are some challenges with existing medications…so this could be a major, major addition.”<\/p>\n

However, he said that while the study was “promising”, it had “some gaps”.<\/p>\n

“We don’t know if the results would be the same for adults, mature people, younger kids, people in other parts of the world.”<\/p>\n

The results of the trial have been submitted to regulators in Europe and Africa, with decisions expected in early 2025.<\/p>\n

Participants are now being recruited to take part in a further trial on 20,000 people in Kenya and Ghana.<\/p>\n

Dr Stella Kepha, a researcher at Kenya Medical Research Institute who worked on the study said the pill had ” great potential for improving the health of affected communities” but that there was still “work to do” to widely roll out the treatment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 globally, researchers say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19783,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19781"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19784,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19781\/revisions\/19784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}