The human whipworm, which infects 500 million people and can damage physical and mental growth, is killed at egg and adult stage by a new drug class developed at the Universities of Manchester and Oxford and University College London.

Current treatments for human whipworm are based on 1960s drugs initially developed for livestock and have a low success rate in people. There are also no vaccines available.

As a result there’s a desperate need for new treatments. The team from the three UK universities, whose results have been published in the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, studied a class of dihydrobenzoxazepinones, not previously associated with controlling whipworms.

The researchers found that the compounds kill the adult stages of the whipworm much more effectively than existing drugs.

Parasite immunologist, Professor Kathryn Else from The University of Manchester said: “Eradicating the whipworm requires more effective drugs, improving hygiene and vaccine development. The compounds we have discovered could address the first two of these.”