Scientists on Thursday announced a major advance in the war on malaria, reporting promising results from a test vaccine, which could slash the toll of death, sickness and poverty inflicted by this disease. In an intermediate trial among Mozambican children, the vaccine reduced the risk of falling sick from malaria by nearly 30 per cent and more than halved the risk of contracting severe malaria, which is potentially fatal.
Researchers, pharmaceutical executives, and campaigners behind the prototype stressed it is not the Holy Grail of a totally effective vaccine against malaria.
And they cautioned that � if all goes well in further trials � the product is unlikely to be available before 2010 at the earliest.
Even so, they were jubilant.
They described the results as the first clear success in a decade-long quest for a vaccine, and one that could dramatically help sub-Saharan Africa, home to 90 per cent of the world�s malaria victims.
�Today we are facing an important milestone in humankind�s battle against malaria,� Jean Stephenne, President of GSK Biologicals, a unit of the pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which engineered the vaccine, said in a teleconference with journalists.
�This is a scientific breakthrough,� declared Melinda Moree, Director of the Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), a programme backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to bring private- and public-sector resources together against malaria.
�These results are far better than anything that has been seen before,� she said. �This is a vaccine that could have a significant impact on public health.�
Malaria is caused by a tiny parasite that is passed on when a female mosquito of the Anopheles gambiae strain draws human blood for a meal.
The parasite, still in its early stage of development, heads to the liver, where it grows and then swarms out, infecting red blood cells and destroying them. The consequences are fever and anaemia and, in severe cases where blood supply to the brain is affected, cerebral malaria.
Between one million and three million people die from malaria each year, and up to 300 million people a year fall sick from it, according to various estimates.
The trial vaccine, RTSS/AS02A, has been in the making for more than 15 years.
It comprises proteins taken from the Plasmodium falciparum parasite in its early stage, a form known as a sporozoite. These proteins are fused into a tried-and-tested hepatitis B vaccine.
Phase I trials, conducted among a small number of human volunteers in the United States and Africa, showed the vaccine was safe and primed antibodies and immune cells to recognise P. falciparum as an intruder.
Larger trials, called Phase IIb, were then carried out among 2,022 children aged between one and four in Manhica, in the southern Mozambican province of Maputo, where there is a year-round malaria risk.
The infants were randomly divided into two groups. One received three doses of the candidate malaria vaccine, and the other group was given three doses of another vaccine, designed for hepatatis B or the pneumonococcal or haemophilus influenza bacteria.
A followup examination six months later showed the risk of developing malaria symptoms was down by 29.9 per cent in the first group as compared to the second.
Among those who did fall sick, the risk of becoming severely ill was down 57.9 per cent in the first group.
The study is published in this Saturday�s issue of The Lancet, the British medical weekly.
Wider tests, called Phase III trials, must now be carried to ensure that the vaccine is truly safe and effective.
Vaccines are one of the most neglected areas of pharmaceutical research.
Big drug corporations prefer to look for treatments and cures, as these are far more profitable than prevention, especially for diseases that affect poverty-stricken countries.
That is why the latest approach in vaccines for malaria and also for the AIDS virus are public-private partnerships. Charities and philanthropists promise a reasonable profit provided Big Pharma devises, tests and manufactures a good vaccine candidate.
Stephenne said he expected the vaccine to cost �between 10 and 20 dollars� per person.
Lead researcher Pedro Alonso of the University of Barcelona�s Centre for International Health, Spain, said the new vaccine would not be a total shield.
It would still have to be used with insecticide-treated nets and other preventive measures and access to better drugs and medical care.
Even so, the molecule had the potential to make �an immense impact� by reducing new infections and thus helping to �break the cycle of disease and poverty� caused by malaria in Africa, he declared.
