The Albert B. Sabin Vaccine Institute in New Canaan, Connecticut, has announced a $21.8 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance its Human Hookworm Vaccine Initiative (HHVI).

Thanks to previous support from the Seattle-based foundation, Phase I safety trials of the institute's human hookworm vaccine have already started in the United States. The new grant will be used study the efficacy and safety of the vaccine in areas of Brazil where hookworm is endemic, as well as to support the manufacturing, quality-control process, and eventual industrial-scale production of the vaccine in Brazil.

"The Gates Foundation again has demonstrated its commitment to achieving equity in global health, particularly among 'the poorest of the poor,' by awarding nearly $40 million to HHVI since 2000," said the institute's chairman, H.R. Shepherd. "Without this support, we simply could not develop a human hookworm vaccine."

Human hookworm infection, which is most common in poor rural areas in the tropics and subtropics, afflicts 740 million individuals worldwide. Infection contributes to growth retardation and intellectual and cognitive impairment in children, and in pregnant women it can result in adverse fetal outcomes.