Malaria Vaccine Protects Half Who Try It

New Malaria Vaccine – Greater than Licensed Vaccine

According to researchers, a new malaria vaccine seems to protect half of those who tend to try it for about a year, an effect which is greater than the licensed vaccine that is made available. For a small company, it is the first big success which has been working out of a Maryland strip mall for years, providing some kind of hope in combating an infection which tends to kill half a million people a years, mostly children. The company known as Sanaria develops the vaccine utilising the total Plasmodium falciparum parasite and the vaccine had protected 55% of the volunteers from getting affected and stopped the parasite from flowing in their blood stream so that they could not be carrier of the infection.

 Dr Tony Fauci, head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease that tends to help in testing the vaccine stated that it is potentially a very impressive vaccine. The clinical study of Phase I was just the first stage of testing the vaccine, involving only some volunteers and the vaccine is years away from the market yet. However, 55% protections was seen and improvement from the 30% protection provided by the drug giant vaccine Mosquirix of GlaxoSmithKline that had gained approval from European drug authorities last year.

Sanaria Adopts Different Approach

Malaria is caused by mosquitoes and the parasite tends to persist in the human body for several years. It is difficult to develop a vaccine for a parasite than a virus or bacteria since the parasite seems to have a complex life cycle which takes it from the blood to the liver and back. It is such a kind of a problem which health officials as well as the government seem to be frantic in attempting anything which would be helpful. Pesticides, bed nets together with eliminating wet breeding ground could help to some extent though nothing has oppressed the contamination.

The vaccine of Glaxo utilised a traditional kind of vaccine approach which was a portion of the protein from Plasmodium parasites and made it into an injection. Sanaria adopted a different approach wherein the company removed the total immature Plasmodium, a small organism known as sporozite from the infected mosquitoes. These were weakened utilising radiation and them made as a vaccine.

Goal – Vaccine Useful in Immunizing Total Population

It had been tough to get good immunity in real life, though Sanaria CEO Dr Stephen Hoffman had stated that an intravenous infusion of the substance had been effective. Hoffman informed NBC News that their goal is a vaccine which could be used in immunizing the total population to halt transmission and eliminate the parasite which is a rather lofty goal. His other goal is to be able to utilise the vaccine in preventing malaria in travellers, diplomats, expatriate workers, military personnel, together with people going in and out of malaria affected areas.Medication could be helpful in the prevention of infection though it could be awkward to use and have some serious side-effects.

A team of NIAID and the University of Maryland, for a trial had immunized 57 healthy individuals who never had malaria and compared them to 32 unvaccinated volunteers. Three weeks later, all had agreed to be bitten by malaria infected mosquitoes. The team reported in the journal Nature Medicine that the effect differed based on how many doses the people received. Only two from the nine volunteers who had received doses of the vaccine were infected with malaria when compared to the five out of six unvaccinated volunteers.