FORMER Bowral High School student Dr Craig Kyngdon is on a team of Melbourne University researchers who have developed a vaccine to eradicate a deadly type of brain disease.
The vaccine has been 30 years in the making and, thanks to multi-million dollar funding from the British Government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it will be used to eradicate a parasite that causes epilepsy and fatal brain disease in poor countries.
The University of Melbourne scientists have shown that their vaccine prevents the human tapeworm parasite Taenia solium from infecting pigs.
Although tapeworms can grow to many metres long and live in humans for years without health implications, the eggs they lay can be transmitted in human faeces.
Free-roaming pigs living in close proximity to humans in areas without sanitation often become infected with the larval parasite by eating food contaminated with the eggs.
Anyone who eats meat from an infected animal that has not been properly prepared could end up with a tapeworm in his or her gut and the cycle continues.
For the full story see the Southern Highland News, Friday, November 28