Oct. 1, 2024 (Washington, DC) – The Health Finance Coalition (HFC), a subsidiary of Malaria No More, and the Clinton Health Access Initiative Inc. (CHAI), today announced a new partnership and initiative to scale up Wolbachia bacteria interventions to prevent dengue and aedes-borne diseases, with a generous award of £6.1M from Wellcome.
More than half of the world’s population is at risk of contracting dengue, an infection spread from Aedes mosquitoes to people, with an annual estimate of 100 – 400 million infections and 40,000 fatalities.
While global incidence of dengue has increased in the past two decades, over the past five years countries have seen record-breaking, unprecedented outbreaks of dengue cases and deaths. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) global warming is poised to spread this tidal wave of dengue infections to even more communities around the world.
In response to this daunting challenge, Wolbachia-based interventions to control dengue and other arboviruses have demonstrated promising results for efficacy and long-term protection. Certain strains of Wolbachia, a naturally occurring bacteria that infects insects, inhibit growth of arboviruses in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, demonstrating strong potential for reducing disease transmission.
While pilots of these strategies show great promise, realizing the full potential of these interventions requires large-scale implementation – and soon.
The award from Wellcome will allow HFC and CHAI to accelerate the scale-up of Wolbachia-based solutions to mitigate the rising threat of dengue and other arboviruses by:
- Incorporating Wolbachia-based tools into evidence-based, government-owned national dengue strategies at the country level while gathering intelligence on demand and budget requirements across Central and South America, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.
- Quantifying regional supply requirements and engaging suppliers to ensure necessary supply and technical expertise exists to meet demand.
- Developing financing mechanisms to fund Wolbachia deployment across diverse settings.
“Dengue prevention methods exist but they are often not effective enough,” said Sally Nicholas, Head of Health Systems & Environment at Wellcome. “This partnership provides critical action that is necessary for overcoming the interconnected demand, supply, and financing challenges that currently hinder widespread uptake of Wolbachia-based approaches.”
“With climate change, insecticide resistance and urbanization all fueling a disturbing spike in dengue cases, innovative approaches are more urgently required than ever to protect communities around the world from mosquito-borne disease,” said Dr. Justin Cohen, CHAI Vice-President for Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases. “The use of Wolbachia to reduce the capacity of mosquito species to transmit diseases like dengue fever is an innovative yet proven approach that we are pleased to help scale in partnership with the Health Finance Coalition as we work to put a stop to disease impacting far too many communities.”
“As we continue to see dengue cases rise globally, the Health Finance Coalition is grateful to Wellcome for their commitment to helping us create an enabling political, economic, and financial environment to allow Wolbachia to become a widely adopted intervention,” said Colleen Connell, Managing Director, Health Finance Coalition. “We look forward to partnering with CHAI to scale innovative health solutions.”
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About the partners
About the Health Finance Coalition (HFC):
The Health Finance Coalition (HFC) was launched by a group of leading philanthropies, investors, donors, technical partners convened by WHO Ambassador for Global Strategy and Health Financing Ray Chambers and hosted by Malaria No More. The HFC seeks to attract an unprecedented level of private-sector investment to impact millions of lives and accelerate progress to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all, a UN Sustainable Development Goal 3. The coalition uses public and philanthropic funding to encourage private-sector capital investment in transformative healthcare impact. Learn more at: healthfinancecoalition.org
About the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc (CHAI):
The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. We work with our partners to strengthen the capabilities of governments and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems that can succeed without our assistance. Learn more at: clintonhealthaccess.org.
About Wellcome:
Wellcome supports science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone. We support discovery research into life, health and wellbeing, and we’re taking on three worldwide health challenges: mental health, infectious disease and climate and health. Learn more at: wellcome.org
