A new pill being developed to cure intestinal worms has shown promising results in trials and could help eliminate the parasitic infection, which affects about 1.5 billion people globally, researchers say. Does.

The mango flavored pill is a combination of two existing anti-parasitic drugs that, when used together, appear to be more effective in getting rid of the worms.

These worms are contracted through contact with food or water contaminated with soil contaminated with the worm’s eggs, and infection causes severe gastrointestinal symptoms, malnutrition and anemia.

Researchers say this pill could help overcome any future drug resistance problems and better manage the disease on a large scale.

Parasites, also known as soil-transmitted helminths (STH), include whipworms and hookworms and are endemic in many developing countries where sanitation levels are poor.

Many of those affected are children and there is no preventive treatment other than better hygiene.

According to a study called “Alive”Published in The Lancet, this new pill could help the most affected countries reach the targets set World Health Organization To eliminate diseases.

It will be taken as a single tablet or a fixed dose of three tablets on consecutive days.

Researchers from eight European and African institutions say it would be an easier way to cure large numbers of people in mass treatment programs.

“It’s easy to administer because it’s a single pill,” says project leader Professor Jose Munoz.

“In addition, we hope that combining two drugs with different mechanisms of action will reduce the risk of parasites becoming drug-resistant,” says Professor Munoz.

Once a person is infected, the parasites take root in people’s digestive system.

Although the drug albendazole is good at treating some species of STH, it is becoming less effective in dealing with some other species.

During a clinical trial conducted on 1,001 children aged 5–18 years in Ethiopia, Kenya and Mozambique, it was found to be more effective against more types of infections when combined with the drug ivermectin.

However, researchers said the results were not conclusive on how well it treated threadworms.

Professor Hany Elshekha, an expert in parasitology at the University of Nottingham, said the pill could be a “significant improvement over other treatments” and could be used against a number of parasites.

“There are some challenges with existing drugs… so this could be a major, major addition.”

However, he said that although the study was “promising”, it had “some shortcomings”.

“We don’t know whether the results will be the same for adults, mature people, young children, people in other parts of the world.”

The results of the trial have been presented to regulators in Europe and Africa, and a decision is expected in early 2025.

Now participants are being recruited to take part in another trial involving 20,000 people in Kenya and Ghana.

Dr. Stella Kefa, a researcher at the Kenya Medical Research Institute who worked on the study, said the pill “has great potential to improve the health of affected communities” but that “work still remains” to roll out the treatment widely. Is”.