Newton Fund - Development of an oral, thermostable enteric fever vaccine: saving lives and supporting tourism in Mexico

Enteric fever is caused by two types of bacteria: Salmonella Typhi (typhoid) and Salmonella Paratyphi (paratyphoid), contracted from contaminated food or water. Although there are vaccines to prevent typhoid, there is no vaccine for paratyphoid which is a growing problem globally. With nearly 27 million global cases of enteric fever each year, Entervax™, the dual typhoid-paratyphoid vaccine developed in this project, could profit not only the Mexican society but also populations in developing countries and travellers globally. This project brought together UK-based Prokarium’s novel vaccine delivery technology with Mexican Probiomed’s pharmaceutical manufacturing capability. The Entervax™ vaccine is swallowed, passes through the stomach and into the intestine where safe bacteria are released to target the body’s own immune cells and trigger an immune response to protect against enteric fever. This avoids the need for injections, and more importantly means it can be delivered to people living in remote areas, as the vaccine is self-administered. If the future vaccine is manufactured for market supply in Mexico, this would generate and support many highly skilled jobs in the pharmaceutical industry.