My recent exploring of the BBC news health page spurred my interest to research further on the Malaria vaccine, after ‘Malaria vaccine shows promise in recent clinical trials.’
Malaria is a disease caused by a protozoan called plasmodium (of which there are four different species which cause malaria and only two are common; Pvixax and P.falciparum.) The plasmodium causes illness when it reproduces inside red blood cells, and then burst out releasing chemicals, which cause fever. A female mosquito of Genus Anopheles transfers it from person to person. It takes in the plasmodium bacterium when obtaining protein from blood to make its eggs. The plasmodium is then injected into another person, where it multiplies in the liver.
Although there are drugs available for malaria, such as prophylactics that are taken prior to being infected. However the largest area affected is Africa, where there is lack of access to drugs and medical expertises and due to poor diet and high HIV rates. Therefore The African Region accounts for 85% of malaria cases and 90% of malaria deaths worldwide. Malaria causes avoidable and often catastrophic spending for households and is an obstacle to the development of affected African communities and nation.
It is clear the malaria vaccine would be so beneficial, it would save one child every 30 seconds from dying from malaria. So what he the advancement so far?
The vaccine contains weakened form of malaria, which is injected into the patient and allows the patient to evolve immunity to the disease. ‘Sanaria has taken lab-grown mosquitoes, irradiated them and then extracted the malaria-causing parasite (Plasmodium falciparum), all under sterile conditions.’ The weakened form are transferred to vials prior to injection into the patients blood stream.
The pre-clinical research was successful and so the next step was to determine appropriate doses of the medication to give the patients. There were 57 volunteers, it was important that none of these patients had been infected before. 17 of the volunteers did not receive any dose, and the other 40 were given different strengths. Once exposed to malaria-infected mosquitoes, it was discovered no vaccine or small doses resulted in infection. The huge advancement for the vaccine was the of the 15 people given high dosage, only 3 became infected after exposure.
Most drugs don’t pass the pre-clinical trials, so this is a huge advancement to be successful on phase one of the clinical trials. I will post any further news on the vaccine!
Sources:
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