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Yahoo
19 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Isaiah 117 House holds community-wide kickoff, goal to open house
DES MOINES, Iowa — Isaiah 117 House held a community-wide kickoff event at Indian Hills Junior High, raising awareness for foster children in need on Sunday. Isaiah 117 House is a non-profit focused on caring for children awaiting placement in the foster care system. The organization is moving into Polk County, where there are over 1,100 children in foster care. Megan Johnson, the Polk County Expansion Coordinator at Isaiah 117 House, said that the organization is committed to making a difference in Iowa. ARL, DMARC host first drive-through pet food giveaway 'Isaiah 117 House works to serve three missions. First, we want to change how foster care begins. Reduce the trauma and try to make it a more comfortable, safe experience. We want to support the HHS Department and support the social workers, and not very many people are saying thank you to social workers these days, and then we want to ease the transition for foster homes,' Johnson said. Johnson said that for the next six months, Isaiah 117 House will focus on raising awareness with the ultimate goal of building a house to serve as a transitional home for children awaiting foster care. 'That's our end goal, would be to have a house. It's not a group home. It's not a shelter. It's a transitional house where kids can come and stay for usually two to three days while they work to locate a foster home, or a relative, or friend, or the family, or a teacher, where they can go and live long term,' Johnson said. Isaiah 117 House will hold meetings on the fourth Monday of every month at 6:30 p.m. at the Urbandale Public Library. The first meeting is scheduled for June 23rd. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press
04-03-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
Measles Outbreak: NV-387 Promises To Be An Effective Drug To Treat Patients; We are Ready To Work With HHS, Says NanoViricides President Dr. Anil Diwan
SHELTON, CT / ACCESS Newswire / March 4, 2025 / The HHS Department Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote an Opinion piece in the FoxNews entitled 'Measles outbreak is call to action for all of us'. He identifies an important issue that, "…there is no approved antiviral for those who may be infected…"[1]. Parents of children who are suffering, and the doctors who are treating them, are frustrated with the lack of any treatment. Mr. Kennedy clearly understands that the plight of suffering patients cannot be relieved without a drug to treat measles. 'We applaud Secretary Kennedy for recognizing the urgency of the situation and taking all possible steps including promoting vaccination in response to this outbreak, while clearly recognizing the deficiency in the response to be the lack of an effective treatment for measles viral disease,' said Anil R. Diwan, PhD., President of NanoViricides, Inc. NanoViricides believes that NV-387, the Company's flagship broad-spectrum antiviral, would be a potentially effective treatment for measles, and is worth evaluating during the current emergency situation created by the spreading outbreak. This belief has a strong rationale as explained below. NV-387 is a broad-spectrum antiviral drug that has been found to be effective against many distinctly different virus families that use heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPG) during attachment to infect cells, including RSV, Influenza, COVID/Coronaviruses and Mpox/Smallpox[2]. We believe it is highly likely that NV-387 should work against measles based on our studies that clearly indicate measles virus also uses HSPG during attachment to infect cells[3]. Further, Measles virus belongs to the same family of paramyxoviruses that RSV belongs to[4]. Treatment with NV-387 was found to cure RSV infection in a lethal animal model study. Therefore, it is reasonable to anticípate that NV-387 could be effective against the measles virus. 'We would love to support the HHS Secretary's efforts and supplement those of the public health professionals in this time of crisis,' said Anil R. Diwan, PhD, President of the Company, adding, 'We believe that an investigator-initiated clinical-trial to evaluate NV-387 as a treatment for measles within the current US FDA regulatory framework is warranted. If successful, NV-387 could be used to treat additional patients within an emergency outbreak regulatory framework, and thereby significantly help in augmenting the response to the current situation.' We note that the current efforts at containment with case-tracking, contact-tracing and isolation, face daunting challenges to be effective because measles is far more contagious than SARS-CoV-2 that caused the global COVID pandemic. In fact, measles is the most contagious disease known to humans. Also, a person may be contagious several days before any obvious rash symptoms appear, and remains contagious for several days afterwards. A COVID-era-style lockup certainly is not warranted, but spread of the disease could continue until the outbreak extinguishes itself as has generally happened in recent measles outbreaks. The fact that even vaccinated children are being hospitalized with the current measles virus should not be taken lightly, even though their percentage remains relatively small[5]. The vaccine strain of measles virus is derived from genotype A, whereas the current infection in Texas is driven by genotype D.8. The standard measles live attenuated virus vaccine since circa 1968 has continued to remain highly effective because the measles virus has undergone very few mutations over centuries, and because this virus only infects humans and does not have any other animal reservoirs to sustain it. However, this situation appears to be changing. Over the last decade, several genotypes arose and only a few have survived in the last few years, indicating a gain in fitness, as well as divergence from the original genotype A, which is still the only vaccine strain. It is not unlikely that the historically known 95-97% effectiveness of the standard measles vaccine may have begun to wane as new virus variants arise under the selective pressure of the current vaccine. Further, vaccination during a growing outbreak does not necessarily protect the newly vaccinated since the vaccine takes several weeks to become effective in the vaccinated individual, as is well known. Vaccination, while laudable for its future effects, is insufficient as a response to the current outbreak. Not having a drug to treat measles has resulted in a critical gap in the outbreak response. On Friday, February 28th, the Secretary of HHS Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Posted on X that 'Ending the measles outbreak is a top priority for me and my extraordinary team at HHS,' and listed the steps being taken by his administration, including vaccination. ( He further elaborated on the situation in the FoxNews opinion piece cited earlier. 'We agree with the HHS Secretary's opinion piece that describes the current administration's robust implementation of standard public health response practices including vaccination, while identifying that the administration is working diligently in spite of a lack of effective treatment,' said Dr. Diwan, adding, 'In this emergency situation, we urge the Secretary to support NanoViricides, Inc.'s efforts to further develop and commercialize its revolutionary medicine NV-387, a broad-spectrum antiviral drug that is not only expected to treat the measles virus infection and help suffering patients, but also to serve as a robust platform addition for future outbreak and pandemic response against a multitude of viruses.' As discussed in prior press releases, NV-387 is expected to remain an effective treatment even as viruses mutate. ABOUT NANOVIRICIDES NanoViricides, Inc. (the 'Company') ( is a publicly traded (NYSE-American, stock symbol NNVC) clinical stage company that is creating special purpose nanomaterials for antiviral therapy. The Company's novel nanoviricide™ class of drug candidates and the nanoviricide™ technology are based on intellectual property, technology and proprietary know-how of TheraCour Pharma, Inc. The Company has a Memorandum of Understanding with TheraCour for the development of drugs based on these technologies for all antiviral infections. The MoU does not include cancer and similar diseases that may have viral origin but require different kinds of treatments. The Company has obtained broad, exclusive, sub-licensable, field licenses to drugs developed in several licensed fields from TheraCour Pharma, Inc. The Company's business model is based on licensing technology from TheraCour Pharma Inc. for specific application verticals of specific viruses, as established at its foundation in 2005. Our lead drug candidate is NV-387, a broad-spectrum antiviral drug that we plan to develop as a treatment of RSV, COVID, Long COVID, Influenza, and other respiratory viral infections, as well as MPOX/Smallpox infections. Our other advanced drug candidate is NV-HHV-1 for the treatment of Shingles. The Company cannot project an exact date for filing an IND for any of its drugs because of dependence on a number of external collaborators and consultants. The Company is currently focused on advancing NV-387 into Phase II human clinical trials. The Company is also developing drugs against a number of viral diseases including oral and genital Herpes, viral diseases of the eye including EKC and herpes keratitis, H1N1 swine flu, H5N1 bird flu, seasonal Influenza, HIV, Hepatitis C, Rabies, Dengue fever, and Ebola virus, among others. NanoViricides' platform technology and programs are based on the TheraCour® nanomedicine technology of TheraCour, which TheraCour licenses from AllExcel. NanoViricides holds a worldwide exclusive perpetual license to this technology for several drugs with specific targeting mechanisms in perpetuity for the treatment of the following human viral diseases: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV/AIDS), Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), Rabies, Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV-1 and HSV-2), Varicella-Zoster Virus (VZV), Influenza and Asian Bird Flu Virus, Dengue viruses, Japanese Encephalitis virus, West Nile Virus, Ebola/Marburg viruses, and certain Coronaviruses. The Company intends to obtain a license for RSV, Poxviruses, and/or Enteroviruses if the initial research is successful. As is customary, the Company must state the risk factor that the path to typical drug development of any pharmaceutical product is extremely lengthy and requires substantial capital. As with any drug development efforts by any company, there can be no assurance at this time that any of the Company's pharmaceutical candidates would show sufficient effectiveness and safety for human clinical development. Further, there can be no assurance at this time that successful results against coronavirus in our lab will lead to successful clinical trials or a successful pharmaceutical product. This press release contains forward-looking statements that reflect the Company's current expectation regarding future events. Actual events could differ materially and substantially from those projected herein and depend on a number of factors. Certain statements in this release, and other written or oral statements made by NanoViricides, Inc. are 'forward-looking statements' within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements since they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond the Company's control and which could, and likely will, materially affect actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. The Company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the company's expectations include, but are not limited to, those factors that are disclosed under the heading 'Risk Factors' and elsewhere in documents filed by the company from time to time with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory authorities. Although it is not possible to predict or identify all such factors, they may include the following: demonstration and proof of principle in preclinical trials that a nanoviricide is safe and effective; successful development of our product candidates; our ability to seek and obtain regulatory approvals, including with respect to the indications we are seeking; the successful commercialization of our product candidates; and market acceptance of our products. The phrases 'safety', 'effectiveness' and equivalent phrases as used in this press release refer to research findings including clinical trials as the customary research usage and do not indicate evaluation of safety or effectiveness by the US FDA. FDA refers to US Food and Drug Administration. IND application refers to 'Investigational New Drug' application. cGMP refers to current Good Manufacturing Practices. CMC refers to 'Chemistry, Manufacture, and Controls'. CHMP refers to the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, which is the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) committee responsible for human medicines. API stands for 'Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient'. WHO is the World Health Organization. R&D refers to Research and Development. NanoViricides, Inc. Public Relations Contact:
