[LUG-Ischia] Non tutte le male vengono etc etc.

[Stephen CS Howe]

Scientists herald malaria breakthrough
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1327884,00.html
Trials in Mozambique point to potential of vaccine

Sarah Boseley, health editor
Friday October 15, 2004
The Guardian

After 50 years of failure, a vaccine against malaria could be in sight,
raising hopes of slashing the death toll from a disease that kills more
than a million people, mostly babies and pregnant women, every year. 

For the first time, human trials carried out on more than 2,000 young
children in Africa have shown that it is possible to produce a vaccine
that will protect some infants against infection and make the course of
the disease less serious and life-threatening in others. 

Results from the trials in Mozambique are published today in the Lancet
medical journal. 

Pedro Alonso, from the centre of international health at the University
of Barcelona, and the team who carried out the research say that,
although the vaccine gave the children only partial protection from
disease, the results "show development of an effective vaccine against
malaria is feasible". 

The trial involved 2,022 children aged between one and four living in
southern Mozambique, where each person gets an estimated 38 bites a year
from malarial mosquitoes. 

The researchers found that vaccinated children were 30% less likely to
have suffered at least one episode of clinical malaria (that needed
treatment) by the end of the six-month trial, compared with unvaccinated
children. 

The vaccine was 45% successful in extending the length of time before
children became infected with malaria, and vaccinated children were 58%
less likely to develop severe malaria which could kill them. 

There was a mixture of excitement and restraint from the scientists
involved, who say that the earliest a vaccine could be licensed, if
further trials go well, is 2010. 


"These results demonstrate the feasibility of developing an efficacious
vaccine against malaria that could significantly contribute to reduce
the intolerable global burden of this disease," writes Dr Alonso in the
Lancet. 

The progress owes much to the malaria vaccine initiative (MVI), which
was set up with a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The
MVI promotes public-private partnerships, often in areas that lack
profitability, such as supplying medicines to the developing world.