Sola Ogundipe
16 December 2008
The most clinically advanced malaria vaccine that is capable of reducing the incidence of malaria by more than 50 per cent in African infants and young children, may be licenced for use by 2011 if results of the final efficacy study commence early next year are anything to go by.
Known as RTS,S/AS01, the new malaria vaccine candidate, studies show, can be safely incorporated into existing national immunisation programmes, without interference with commonly used childhood vaccines such as polio, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, and Haemophilus influenza type b.
Cristian Loucq, of the Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) told Good Health Weekly in a telephone interview last week that investment in developing malaria vaccines was beginning to pay dividends.
"We are closer than ever before to developing a malaria vaccine for children in Africa. History has shown that vaccines are the most powerful tool to control and eliminate infectious diseases. Clearly, the world urgently needs a safe and effective vaccine to win the war against this terrible disease."
The vaccine which works alongside standard infant vaccines of WHO's Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI), has a favourable safety profile, and has consistently shown a significant efficacy level. We can begin to foresee the difference this scientific breakthrough could make in the lives of millions of African children who suffer and die from this disease year after year."
In the view of Joe Cohen, a co-inventor of the vaccine and Vice-president of Research & Development, Emerging Diseases & HIV at GSK Biologicals. "The energy and motivation levels are at an all-time high, as the partnership finalizes preparations to launch the historic phase III trial early next year."
Cohen said results from two new studies, conducted in Kenya and Tanzania, demonstrated that the vaccine, which reduced the risk of clinical episodes of malaria significantly over an eight-month follow-up period, could be the scientific breakthrough that would make in the lives of millions of African children malari-free.
The studies were earlier presented at the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) conference and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Results from Phase II studies of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Biologicals' malaria vaccine candidate RTS,S/AS demonstrate that it can provide significant protection against malaria infection and the progression of infection to clinical disease. For the first time, RTS,S/AS administered together with commonly used childhood vaccines has been shown to have both promising safety profile and efficacy profiles.
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