Frédéric Ojardias

‘Truly spectacular’ drug for sleeping sickness simplifies treatment, raising hopes for eradication European regulators greenlight new one-dose compound that could help African countries get rid of an ancient burden

‘Acoziborole, which cures both mild and severe cases of sleeping sickness, “is truly spectacular,” says Jean-Mathieu Bart.´

www.science.org/content/arti...

Fantastic news. Elimination of sleeping sickness in sight!

Global health is in crisis: to reach neglected patients, we need to reimagine medical research Amid the current debate over the devastating impact of recent aid cuts on global health programmes, the question of non-profit development of health tools for public health needs has received little a...

What impact does the global health crisis have on non-profit medical R&D organizations bringing life-saving innovation to millions of neglected people? Our executive director @drluispizarro.bsky.social outlines key challenges and possible solutions in @GlobalHealthBMJ
gh.bmj.com/content/11/1...

« La science est un bien commun. Personne ne peut la bâillonner ou se l’approprier. Car confisquer la science, c’est confisquer l’avenir. »

Our Policy Advocacy Director @childsmichelle.bsky.social with an extremely timely opinion piece in the @financialtimes.com! How to ensure that the exodus from infectious disease research does not affect millions around the world in need of innovation.

#MakeScienceOpen

Updated live streaming link: us06web.zoom.us/j/86313952219

The Boy Who Beat The Sandfly YouTube video by Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi)

🎬 We're proud to share our new film 'The Boy Who Beat The Sandfly'. It tells Henry’s story of courage & recovery, showing the impact visceral leishmaniasis can have on children & their communities. It’s also a call for better, simpler treatments for this disease. youtu.be/eyiJ-VeVk-w

Worst dengue outbreak in Sudan’s history. Civil war destroyed health infrastructure. Flooding and breakdown of sewage systems create breeding grounds for mosquitoes carrying dengue & malaria. Hospitals are overwhelmed. 🧵1/2
www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025 The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025 was awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.”

Warm congratulations to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi on being awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine 👏 (1/4) www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medic...

A doctor examines a child injured at Nasser Hospital, southern Gaza

Patients are treated in makeshift tents in the courtyard of Nasser medical complex, southern Gaza

Doctors operate on a patient at Al-Awda hospital, northern Gaza

Patients are being left to suffer as a painkiller crisis hits Gaza’s hospitals

More than 167,000 people have been reported injured in Gaza since 7 October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry

Read the full story: www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2025...

The Ig Nobels are science’s most lighthearted event. This year is ‘not typical’ Amid Trump research cuts, visa restrictions, and international conflicts, some winners sit out the celebration of whimsical science

'At a time when U.S. scientists feel besieged, this year’s Ig Nobels carry a special weight.'
www.science.org/content/arti...

Great news! 🎉

Following an independent expert review, we have formally nominated the broad-spectrum pan-coronavirus antiviral ASAP-0017445 as a pre-clinical drug candidate.

🔗Read the press release here: dndi.org/press-releas...

China deploys ‘cannibal’ mosquitoes and killer fish to fight chikungunya More than 7,000 cases of the debilitating mosquito-borne disease have been reported in an unprecedented outbreak

China deploys ‘cannibal’ mosquitoes and killer fish to fight chikungunya www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt... @telglobalhealth.bsky.social

Exclusive: USAID cancelled rape survivor kits for Congo as conflict erupted U.S. President Donald Trump's administration cancelled a major contract to supply emergency kits for rape survivors in Congo as violence surged in the east this year, leaving thousands without access to life-saving medication, the United Nations and aid groups said.

'Donald Trump's administration cancelled a major contract to supply emergency kits for rape survivors in Congo as violence surged in the east this year, leaving thousands without access to life-saving medication.'
www.reuters.com/business/hea...

“Le désir de rester en vie [ne doit plus être] un terrain de spéculation financière.”

Excellent livre qui résume très bien les enjeux éco autour du médicament. La dérive des prix flingue notre sécu. Le livre donne des pistes concrètes pour y remédier.

Par Gaëlle Krikorian & @mdmfrance.bsky.social

"Uncovering Turkana's Silent Plague: The Gruesome Disease Crippling a Region" YouTube video by The Kenyan Historian

'In the arid plains of Turkana, Kenya, a silent and devastating disease called mycetoma is quietly destroying lives.'
Heart-wrenching testimonies from patients living with the disease. By the Kenyan Historian.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZFA...

Is there a better way to develop new drugs? Pharmaceutical giants claim that research and development costs justify the sky-high prices of drugs. But this isn’t the whole truth. In December 2023, Clare

“So, if pharmaceutical companies aren’t as innovative as we’ve been led to believe, and if the innovation they do provide comes at such a high cost, is there another way?”
Yes. 👇
cosmosmagazine.com/health/medic...

Nice partnership in Korea to develop a medicine for river blindness - the second leading cause of infectious blindness worldwide. Story in Korean here: n.news.naver.com/article/030/...

Kenya : le mycétome, une maladie endémique pourtant encore négligée Le mycétome est une infection locale que l'on attrape notamment en marchant pieds nus sur des épines. Faute de diagnostic précoce ou de soins, l'amputation est souvent la seule option.

Le mycétome est une maladie épouvantable. L'amputation est trop souvent la seule solution pour sauver les patients.
La maladie est très négligée (DNDi a mené le premier essai clinique moderne pour tester un nouveau traitement).
Reportage @afp.com au Kenya information.tv5monde.com/afrique/vide...

One man’s work saved thousands of lives in Uganda and now a renewed strategy aims to eliminate a deadly parasite - The END Fund Learn how one man is helping to find and treat cases of visceral leishmaniasis in East Africa, leading to new strategies for elimination.

Il parcourt la brousse à moto pour trouver des patients atteints de la leishmaniose viscérale en Ouganda, et les amener à l'hôpital. En 20 ans de travail, Andrew a sauvé des milliers de vies.
end.org/east-africa-...

'Neglected tropical diseases' now face even more neglect U.S. aid cuts could jeopardize the supply of donated drugs that are hailed for their effectiveness in combating neglected diseases like river blindness, schistosomiasis and trachoma.

Neglected tropical diseases now face even more neglect. By @jpatadams.bsky.social
www.npr.org/sections/goa...

Contre la leishmaniose viscérale, une maladie tropicale négligée, plusieurs pays africains s’unissent Transmise par la piqûre de petits moucherons, cette pathologie cause la mort de 20 000 à 30 000 personnes par an, surtout en Afrique de l’Est.

Chad, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti & South Sudan signed a political accord to eliminate visceral leishmaniasis -one of deadliest parasitic killers after malaria.
Including by supporting research.
Encouraging news from Le Monde @droucaute.bsky.social @dndi.org
www.lemonde.fr/planete/arti...

Les chercheurs français ne respectent pas les obligations en matière de publication de résultats des essais cliniques Le Baromètre de la science ouverte révèle que la moitié des résultats des recherches menées en France ne font pas l’objet d’une publication. Outre qu’il fait une entorse à la loi, ce défaut d’accessib...

« La moitié des résultats des recherches menées en France ne font pas l’objet d’une publication (…) un problème de santé publique, en créant des lacunes potentiellement dangereuses dans les bases de données médicales. »
www.lemonde.fr/sciences/art...

Bölët Mouna Inside Guinea's quest to eliminate sleeping sickness

"Une aiguille dans une botte de foin : L’élimination de la maladie du sommeil en Guinée, vue de l’intérieur."
Notre reportage en Guinée, format immersif, est disponible en français:
stories.dndi.org/boletmounaFR...

World’s only research centre for flesh-eating infection ransacked in Sudan Mycetoma Research Centre becomes yet another victim of the country’s civil war, in a ‘major blow’ for efforts to tackle the disease

Devastating story from Sudan. 40 years of samples and data lost when the Mycetoma Research Center was destroyed during the war.
Including “very rare types of fungi and bacteria, some of them reported on for the first time.“
By @sneweyy.bsky.social
www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...

Sudan war destroys world's only research centre on skin disease mycetoma: director The world's only research centre on mycetoma, a neglected tropical disease common among farmers, has been destroyed in Sudan's two-year war, its director and another expert say.

In English.
www.france24.com/en/live-news...

Soudan : un centre de recherche médicale unique au monde détruit, selon son fondateur Le seul centre au monde de recherche sur le mycétome, une maladie tropicale infectieuse touchant particulièrement les populations défavorisée, a été détruit à Khartoum par la guerre au...

“Le seul centre au monde de recherche sur le mycétome, une maladie tropicale infectieuse touchant particulièrement les populations défavorisée, a été détruit à Khartoum par la guerre au Soudan.”
C’est l’une des maladies les plus négligées. Terrible nouvelle.
www.lorientlejour.com/article/1457...

WHO Member Countries Agree to Pandemic Treaty (Gift Article) The World Health Organization finally reached a compromise on a pandemic treaty after three years of talks. The United States withdrew from negotiations after President Trump took office.

Prepare yourself for the unfamiliar sensation of not-entirely-terrible news. After years of tense talks, the 191 member states of the World Health Organization have agreed on language for a pandemic treaty and it contains some genuine good compromises on equity. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/h...

Statement from the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) on the conclusion of WHO Pandemic Agreement negotiations DNDi welcomes the historic consensus on the WHO Pandemic Agreement—a first-of-its-kind treaty that, if implemented, could help reshape global health equity by ensuring public funding delivers public b...

‘For the first time in history, an international health agreement has explicitly acknowledged the critical need for governments to leverage the power of public funding to shape innovation outcomes.’
Read our statement as the WHO Pandemic Agreement negotiations just concluded
dndi.org/statements/2...