💉 Saving babies from malaria; Expand your social circle; Before cancer claims you
#569 | We're not meeting those SDG targets; Fungus for the win; Protect them animals
Hello, and welcome back to The Kable.
Variety, they say, is the spice of life. So we're actually beginning with excellent news this week. Regulators in Switzerland have approved the world's first malaria drug for use in newborn babies and underweight infants. The drug - a new formulation of Novartis' antimalarial Coartem, co-developed with Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) - will hopefully shortly be available in the 8 African countries that partnered with SwissMedic for trials led by the PAMAfrica Consortium.
Excellent news also from the US where authorities have ended the bird flu emergency response. As if anyone in authority positions in that particular country even pretended to care.
Good news also from India where... oh wait... it is another drug recall due to manufacturing issues.
And finally, in a welcome break from stories of drug makers in India being censured for flouting quality norms, here is a story of a drug maker being fined by the EU for API price-fixing. Variety, indeed.
Before we dive into the stories of the week…
The Kable is proud to be Editorial Partner to Pharmaconex—Africa’s most influential hub for pharmaceutical manufacturing across the MEA region.
Like The Kable, Pharmaconex puts the spotlight on the pharma story in Africa and is committed to building a thriving community for industry leaders, innovators, and changemakers to share knowledge, forge partnerships, and move the sector forward.
Register now for free access to the event—and to receive your digital copy of Emerging Frontiers, our annual report on Africa’s biopharma future, launching this September at Pharmaconex Egypt.
Stories Of The Week
My loneliness is killing me. Turns out dying of loneliness isn’t just lyrics from one of the greatest hits of one of the greatest pop artists of her generation. A recent WHO report reveals that social disconnection now rivals tobacco, booze, and bad air as a top killer, claiming 871,000 lives a year. That’s roughly 100 people per hour succumbing to the slow burn of not enough hugs. Young people, despite swimming in Wi-Fi, are hit hardest, with screen time up, trust down, and real connection increasingly optional. The WHO wants loneliness treated like smoking: a public health issue, not just a personal mood. Because if we don’t start building bridges, we’ll keep digging graves.
(WHO)
Sensitive as a cancer. From coast to coast all over the world, the math is bleak but simple: 15.6 million people born between 2008 and 2017 are projected to develop gastric cancer in their lifetimes. 76% of those cases are thanks to one microscopic culprit, Helicobacter pylori. Asia will shoulder two-thirds of the burden (10.6 million cases), but thanks to demographics, sub-Saharan Africa could see a sixfold surge in incidence by the time today’s teenagers hit middle age. China and India alone account for 42% of the global total, and yet less than a handful of countries have population-level screen-and-treat programs in place. For a disease this predictable, prevention seems oddly out of fashion. Only Bhutan seems to be paying attention (hi, Bhutan, bye Bhutan, rambutan). To no one's surprise, the Americas continue to sit this one out, even as 2 million cases loom. Hopefully, climate change will get these kids before cancer does.
(Nature)
WASH my love. WHO and UNICEF’s newly updated WASH tracker now spans 107 countries - up from 75 just two years ago - and paints a picture that’s part progress, part pandemic déjà vu. Nearly every country is doing something to improve water, sanitation, hygiene, and waste services in health-care facilities, with over 90% setting national standards or doing baseline assessments. But only 17% have locked in the funding to actually fix things, leaving billions of people - 3.85 billion, to be exact - at risk in clinics without basics like soap or alcohol-based hand rub. 688 million people still get care in facilities with zero hygiene services. SDGs, here we come.
(WHO)
Absence makes the heart grow fungus. If it was cancer-causing bacteria that starred two stories above, it is a fungus stealing the show here. And not just any old fungus but Aspergillus fumigatus, which already occupies pole position in the WHO's list of priority fungi, behind only Candida auris. A recent Dutch study says this dirt-dwelling, compost-loving mold we inhale daily is getting harder to treat as it grows more resistant to available drugs. The study, well, studies, over 12,600 lung samples and found that 2,000 carried azole resistance mutations, with 17% showing novel variations. Among patients with invasive infections, 86% were battling multiple fungal strains at once - some with conflicting resistance genes. With just three drug classes available and fungi sharing half their DNA with us (unlike viruses and bacteria, those distant cousins), drug development is tricky. Thankfully, this trend is global. Wherever researchers look, resistant fungi are already there. Maybe we can all go out together with one final resounding boom.
(The Lancet Microbe)
Long reads
Silence like a cancer grows. It is not just gastric cancer that the young are more likely to get afflicted by. Colorectal, bladder, lung, oesophagus, pancreas, breast, ovarian, uterine, kidney and laryngeal cancer and myeloma are all on the rise in people under 50. Hey, 50 is young. The Conversation wonders whether plastic might have something to do with it. We say, yes, for sure. But the piece completely ignores one of the most oncogenic causes of the last five years. Covid.
(The Conversation)
Cause you're an animal. July 6 was World Zoonoses Day. Because we need an annual reminder of how prone we are to catching an illness from other species. This piece in Health Policy Watch contends that the best way to protect us is to ensure animals are protected first. Can't say we disagree.
(Health Policy Watch)
Syringes and half-thought disposal. An opinion piece in The Lancet exploring why plastic syringes don't get re-used more. Billions of these syringes are discarded each year, yet despite being made from easily recyclable polymers, they rarely get a second life, thanks to decades of infection fears, incineration norms, and safety protocols that favour disposal over reuse. While most high-income countries burn syringes and many low-income countries dump or burn them unsafely, successful recycling models like Nepal’s - where syringes are cut, disinfected, and recycled on-site - prove a circular approach is possible. Still, stigma, design limitations, and underfunded systems stand in the way of turning this hazardous waste stream into a sustainable one.
(The Lancet)
Oh, and Gopal Nair doesn't want you to see this.