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$8.4 million NIH grant supports development of first malaria treatments
The NIH awarded a Michigan State University researcher with an $8.4 million grant to investigate treatments for children with cerebral malaria, according to a press release.
The grant will build on research conducted by award recipient Terrie E. Taylor, DO, Michigan State University Distinguished Professor of internal medicine, and colleagues, who previously discovered that cerebral malaria in children causes massive brain swelling that compresses the brain stem.
“Because we now know that brain swelling is the likely cause of death, we can focus on identifying new treatments,” Taylor said in the release. “One intervention we will evaluate uses ventilators to breathe for the children. We know from studying children who have survived cerebral malaria that the brain swelling does go down after a few days. This tells me that if we can help them breathe, they may survive. It may be that simple to save children’s lives.”
Another treatment that Taylor and her research team will test is a saline solution that can potentially reduce brain swelling. If the treatments are successful, they would be the first developed for cerebral malaria, the release said.
Taylor and colleagues will conduct their research in Malawi at the country’s first pediatric surgery and intensive care unit, which is scheduled to open in April 2017.
According to WHO’s 2016 World Malaria Report, an estimated 303,000 children under the age of 5 years died from malaria worldwide, including 292,000 children in the African region.
“Cerebral malaria kills a child every 2 minutes,” Taylor said. “We, as a global community, should be concerned and support efforts to save these children even as we try to eradicate the disease.”
Disclosure: Infectious Disease News was unable to confirm relevant financial disclosures at the time of publication.