Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1754

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Publication type: news

Jopson D.
Vaccine for Aborigines spurned by drug makers
Sydney Morning Herald 2002 Apr 15

Full text:

A research body planning clinical trials on a vaccine against rheumatic fever – from which Aborigines suffer at the highest recorded rate in the world – cannot find a pharmaceutical company willing to provide the $500,000 needed to begin them.

The disease, which yearly kills 400,000 people worldwide, almost exclusively afflicts indigenous and impoverished people, so any vaccine would not be required in affluent markets, said the director of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Michael Good.

“This is incredibly promising and to me it is incredibly frustrating,” said Professor Good, whose institute has developed a vaccine against the group A streptococci, the bugs which produce tonsillitis and which in economically depressed populations can lead to rheumatic heart disease.

In research at the institute, the vaccine has produced protective antibodies in mice and the plan is to conduct a trial on healthy Brisbane adults to ensure its safety before trials in vulnerable indigenous communities.

However, several requests for funding from pharmaceutical and biotech companies have been knocked back. A small European biotech company has expressed interest but a philanthropic organisation may need to step in, Professor Good said.

Aborigines in remote areas are the most affected by the disease, the director of the Indigenous Land Corporation, Kevin Driscoll, said late last week after donating $50,000 to the research.

In some areas, because of the damage the disease can cause to heart valves, those who contract it can expect to live an average of just six more years, he said.

There is an “alarming rate” of acute rheumatic fever among indigenous youngsters aged 5-14, according to an article in the Aboriginal & Islander Health Worker Journal by Christine Franks, a government social epidemiologist in Alice Springs. It has been linked to streptococcal skin infections and scabies, as well as throat infections, and particularly afflicts women, Ms Franks wrote.

One five-year retrospective study of Kimberley residents found that the incidence of acute rheumatic fever in Aborigines is 241 cases per 100,000, soaring to 375 per 100,000 among children aged 5-14.