An anti malarial vaccine presently known as RTS, S/AS02D has been developed by a team of Spanish scientists in Mozambique along with GlaxoSmithKline. This was published in the British medical journal The Lancet on Wednesday and announced at a meeting of scientists, experts, and government officials summoned by the Gates Foundation in Seattle in order to review progress in the fight against malaria.
The project, known as PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, was launched in 1999 with funding from the Gates Foundation. Several of the researchers work for GlaxoSmithKline.
Malaria claims the lives of over a million people each year, most of them in Africa with 90% of them being children. In fact, it is estimated that a child dies of malaria every 30 seconds.
The new vaccine which doesn't have a brand name but is presently referred to as RTS, S/AS02D, has been proven to afford a certain amount of protection to adult men and young children above one. However, the latest trial in Mozambique has shown when infants are given the vaccine together with other routine immunizations in the first few weeks of life they are very well protected and do not suffer any serious side-effects. The scientists report that the new vasccine reduced malarial infections by 65% and even those who did get malaria were not very likely to be seriously ill. Observations showed that the number of cases requiring clinical care was down by 35%.
Project leader Dr. Pedro Alonso, from the University of Barcelona said, "This is the age group most vulnerable to severe disease and death from malaria, "We want to protect children as early as possible,"
As part of the study, which was Phase II trial, a 214 babies between 10 and 18 weeks of age were given the three-shot vaccine at a local clinic in southern Mozambique. Half of the babies received three doses of the vaccine at 10, 14, and 18 weeks old. The other babies were administered three doses of a hepatitis B vaccine at the same age.
The 214 babies were also given routine vaccinations against other sicknesses. Their families were given insecticide-laced mosquito nets to be draped over the infants' beds and insecticide was twice sprayed inside their homes to home in on mosquitoes.
The scientists then observed the children for six months after they were given their last malaria or hepatitis B vaccination.
During that period no very noticeable adverse effects were noticed as result of vaccine and blood tests showed higher levels of anti malarial antibodies in the babies who were given the malaria vaccine.
Although the study wasn't primarily designed to test the efficacy of the vaccine, the results point to the vaccine reducing the babies' chances of developing malaria which is why the researchers said the vaccine's true value was still to be ascertained. Besides, the vaccine will not eradicate malaria, just reduce deaths from it.
Akhil Vaidya, a malaria researcher at the Drexel University College of Medicine and head of the Center for Molecular Parasitology, Microbiology and Immunology says, "This is not a magic bullet. We have a long way to bring the malaria down to acceptable levels. But if it's reduced by a few hundred thousand deaths, that will be a great achievement."
The scientists are now planning to expand the testing to 16,000 children in Africa.
"It will be one of the largest clinical trials ever done in Africa," GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C.'s vice president global clinical research for GlaxoSmithKline Biological, W. Ripley Ballou, said, and added that if the trials succeed, a malaria vaccine for children could become available in the next four years.
