NanoViricides, Inc., reported that it has signed a research and development agreement with Dr. Eva Harris laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley
Under this agreement, Dr. Harris and colleagues will evaluate the effectiveness of nanoviricides (R) drug candidates against various dengue virus. Cell culture models and in vivo animal studies will be used to test drug candidates.
The Company believes that the drug is being developed nanoviricide be expected to be a broad spectrum of anti-dengue antiviral medication that can attack all four dengue virus serotypes and variant strains. There are currently no approved vaccines for the prevention of dengue fever, or drugs to treat dengue virus infections. World market size is an effective anti-dengue treatment may be as large as that for the treatment of hepatitis C virus, or the billions of dollars, based on current population exposure data.
Dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever / dengue shock syndrome emerged as a global health problem that seriously. Dengue is endemic in most of the world. Now threatens more than 3 billion people around the world, or 40% of the world’s population, and is considered the threat that came back in the United States. Dengue is officially regarded as “neglected tropical disease” by the World Health Organization. Approximately 50-100 million people infected with dengue virus each year. In fact, recently, the government Cali, Columbia declared an emergency because of the number of dengue hemorrhagic fever infection and death. Globalization and climate warming along with changes in the ecology of mosquitoes carrying the virus that accelerate the spread of the virus. Without proper treatment, DHF mortality rate can exceed 20%
Dr. Eva Harris is a Professor of Infectious Diseases at UC Berkeley. He was a leading researcher in the field of dengue. His group has developed a unique animal model for dengue virus infection and emulate effective disease seen in human pathology. In particular, the critical problem of dengue virus infection, which is called “Antibody-Dependent Enhancement” (ADE), reproduced in this animal model. When a person previously infected with one serotype of dengue virus and then infected with different serotypes, antibodies produced by the immune system can lead to increased severity of a second dengue infection, rather than control it. ADE which can cause severe illness or dengue dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF).