Last week, Dr. Peter Hotez, president of Sabin Vaccine Institute
and his co-author, Dr. Bruce Lee of the University of Pittsburgh
Medical Center, published a new study in Lancet Infectious
Diseases. In this first study of its kind, Drs. Hotez and Lee
measured the health and economic impact of Chagas disease and
found that the total economic burden matches or exceeds that of
many more well-known diseases such as rotavirus, Lyme disease
and cervical cancer. In total, the study estimates that the
global economic cost of Chagas disease exceeds USD $7 billion
annually. To combat this growing global concern, the Sabin
Vaccine Institute Product Development Partnership (Sabin PDP),
in collaboration with Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College
of Medicine and other PDP partners, is currently engaged in
early research and development for a bivalent therapeutic
vaccine for the treatment of chronic Chagas disease. If
successful, it would be the first therapeutic vaccine for the
treatment of this disease. You can see th