14 DAY TRIAL // With a $1 million grant from the Renaissance Health Service Corporation (RHSC), experts at the Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) are nearing the end of an effort to discover a cure for Hansen's Disease, an ancient condition also known as leprosy.
This disease has been with our species longer than most others, but it still threatens to infect 1.6 billion people. Around 800 new cases are registered every day, according to official statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO).
“We believe it is tragic that this disease continues to affect millions of people, and take pride in being the founding sponsor of the campaign aimed at finally eliminating it,” RHSC Senior Vice President for Corporate and Public Affairs, Nancy E. Hostetler, explains.
Experts at IDRI have already compiled the largest panel of M. leprae antigens that are relevant to human disease, and now seek to create a vaccine based on these data. Thanks to the new grant, their work may yield positive results soon, EurekAlert reports.