malaria vaccine success

Oxford University researchers tested a malaria vaccine called R21 It works better than any of the vaccines we use today.

The World Health Organization has set a goal that the vaccine should provide 75 percent protection for the parasite that spreads malaria to die in the long term. The new vaccine has provided 80% protection, which of course gives great hope for the future.

“If this vaccine is rolled out on a large scale, it could potentially change the world,” says Katie Ewer, a professor at Oxford University and one of the researchers behind the study. In a comment to the BBC.

Since the vaccine only costs a few dollars a dose, researchers have high hopes that it will truly roll out to everyone in the danger zone.

Combined with bed nets and mosquito repellents, there is a chance that the new vaccine could stop the spread of malaria completely. It would then save 400,000 lives, mostly children, every year around the world.

The researchers received the first results from a study last year already. But now they have analyzed the results after a year and can then see that the vaccine is equally effective even two years after the first vaccination. Thus, the parasite that spreads malaria does not appear to become immune to the new vaccine.

In the first trial, researchers tested 409 children for the vaccine. A larger Phase III trial is also underway with 4,800 children, and if it shows the same results, the researchers hope to have the vaccine within a year. The world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute in India, says it is ready to produce 100 million doses per year of the vaccine once it is approved. So we may soon see the beginning of the end of the malaria scourge.

Read the full study here.

Breakthrough malaria vaccine – 77% effective on young children

The Oxford University malaria vaccine is the first vaccine to exceed the WHO target of 75% efficacy. The new vaccine is 77% effective, preliminary results from a phase 2 study in children show.