WormFreeWorld advocates a three-pronged integrated approach to intestinal roundworms that aims to rid affected populations of these parasites and to improve key aspects of their lives, like having access to clean and adequate water and food.
New and more powerful cures are critically needed. Current drugs have suboptimal efficacy and are prone to the development of parasite resistance.
We are developing new and potent anti-roundworm drugs (i.e., anthelmintics) that are specifically developed for and optimized against human intestinal parasitic roundworms. These new potent anthelmintics need to be safe, cheap, available for scale-up, readily available, and stable for use and storage in tropical countries. We have several very promising candidates in development, although financial resources are urgently needed to maintain and expand these efforts.
We are developing anti-roundworm drug combination therapies, in which two or more anthelmintics are combined. Each compound supports the effectiveness of the other, while in combination preventing the parasites from developing resistance. The Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART) drug-combination strategy developed to combat HIV/AIDS is an excellent model we are following. One promising anti-roundworm combinatorial therapy is currently under development, and more are envisioned. Again, resources are urgently needed.
We are supportive of the work of others developing new anthelmintics and of the long-term development of vaccines to combat human intestinal roundworm parasites. We also recognize that development of vaccines needs to go hand-in-hand with development of more potent drugs, since infected peoples need to be cleared of infections prior to vaccination.
Current diagnostics for these parasites rely on examining human feces under a microscope looking for parasite eggs. As such, the feces of only a sampling of children or adults are examined, and these findings are extrapolated to the entire local population. If a high level of infection is found in these samples, then the population is treated, whether a given individual is infected or not. If the level of infection in the sampling is below a threshold, then no one is treated, whether they are infected or not.
We believe that a better approach would be to develop inexpensive diagnostic kits that could be used to detect the presence and intensity of intestinal-roundworm infections in individuals. In this way, the people who directly need treatment get treated. With good diagnostic kits, we could also detect those that do not respond well to treatment, allowing for follow up and additional treatments. Furthermore, people who do not need treatment would not get treated, reducing waste and treatment costs.
Intestinal parasitic roundworms are a disease of poverty and unsanitary conditions. Infections are a result of contaminated food, water, and/or soil, all of which can be sources for infection. Although clean up of the environment for the 4.5 billion people at risk is not going to happen overnight (thus the urgent need for new cures), it is a desirable and long-term goal. WormFreeWorld wishes to coordinate with and support the efforts of others to provide clean food, water, and environment to tropical countries.
In addition, the deworming of children and adults needs to go hand-in-hand with improved nutrition. As children become free of the parasites, their physical and mental growth capacities significantly increase. This increase needs to be met with increased nutrition. WormFreeWorld supports those that aim to provide safe and adequate food to those populations at risk for intestinal parasitic roundworms.