Photo: © Getty Images
Last week, The New England Journal of Medicine came out with the results of the largest-ever malaria vaccine study (see link below), involving 15,460 babies (6 to 12 weeks of age) and small children (5 to 17 months of age) across seven African countries: Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. The vaccine has been in development for 20 years and the early data from small children is just the first of three important results. The other results are: the outcome from the vaccination of newborn babies (which will be published in 2012) and finally the outcomes on how well the protection lasts (which is expected to be known by 2014).
According to the World Health Organization half of the world's population is at risk of malaria. Every year, about 250 million malaria cases and nearly one million deaths are reported. Malaria is especially a serious problem in Africa, where 20 percent of childhood deaths are due to the effects of the disease. Funding major donors play a crucial role in the research for new compounds that help fighting malaria and other diseases. However, they are now facing huge costs in making the new compounds they helped to develop available: long delays in protocol approvals raise costs, consuming the limited funding available to find cures for neglected diseases and bring them to market. We all know this is just the beginning and a more effective vaccine will eventually come out in the future. But right now we don't have any vaccine at all. Will the donors come forward to buy the new vaccine or wait for an improved one? The question is yet to answer.
read more: A Vaccine for Malaria
The first results published in the journal relates to the first 6,000 small children, aged 5 to 17 months, to be immunised. They all received three doses either of vaccine or an ineffective placebo. Over the 12 months following immunisation, the vaccine reduced their risk of developing clinical malaria (high fevers and chills that need medical treatment) by 56 percent, and of developing severe malaria by 47 percent. For every 1,000 children who received the vaccine there were 750 cases of malaria over a year, compared with 1,500 per 1,000 children who were given a placebo (one child can have more than one bout of the disease).
According to the World Health Organization half of the world's population is at risk of malaria. Every year, about 250 million malaria cases and nearly one million deaths are reported. Malaria is especially a serious problem in Africa, where 20 percent of childhood deaths are due to the effects of the disease. Funding major donors play a crucial role in the research for new compounds that help fighting malaria and other diseases. However, they are now facing huge costs in making the new compounds they helped to develop available: long delays in protocol approvals raise costs, consuming the limited funding available to find cures for neglected diseases and bring them to market. We all know this is just the beginning and a more effective vaccine will eventually come out in the future. But right now we don't have any vaccine at all. Will the donors come forward to buy the new vaccine or wait for an improved one? The question is yet to answer.
read more: 10 Facts on Malaria
read more: Malaria Vaccine Initiative
No comments:
Post a Comment