This breakthrough is pretty amazing: Scientists have produced a vaccine for malaria. Nathan Olivarez-Giles summarizes the results of the small study: The vaccine, which is made using a weakened form of the disease, was administered in varying doses to a group of more than three dozen volunteers. Six people, each of whom were given a full five doses of the vaccine, were unable to contract malaria when exposed to the disease, the study says. This is the first time any vaccine has achieved 100% effectiveness in any trial, researchers report. Nine others were given four doses of PfSPZ, three of whom became infected in the trial. Of another 12 who took part in the trial but weren’t given the vaccine, 11 contracted malaria, the study says. Ashley Feinberg explains how the vaccine is made: [P]art of the reason it’s taken so long to get to this point is that the process of actually making the vaccine is incredibly difficult and complex. First [head researcher Stephen Hoffman] had to raise mosquitoes in sterile conditions “on an industrial scale.” He would feed them blood that had been infected with the malaria parasite and then exposed to radiation to so that the parasite would weaken. That way, the body would recognize its presence without being infected with the actual disease. Next, billions of these parasites were harvested from the mosquitoes’ salivary glands, purified, and cryopreserved. And while all this was happening, most researchers in the field were expecting him to fail. They didn’t think it would be possible to mass-produce this virus in a way that passed the highly strict quality and safety standards that human medicine must undergo. And now, as [director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony] Fauci mentioned to Nature, “To my amazement, Hoffman did it.” Jason Koebler qualifies the successful trial: The NIH trial is not without red flags, however. The vaccine was barely effective in smaller doses, which means booster shots or larger doses will need to be administered, which can drive up cost and decrease enrollment. Secondly, the vaccine needs to be injected directly into the bloodstream. That’s not a problem if you’re getting it in a hospital or clinic, but that means whoever is giving the vaccine will need to be specially trained. Self administration, at this point, is not an option. But the fact that the NIH and the U.S. Department of Defense are behind this, and malaria’s long list of deep-pocketed enemies, make it unlikely that funding will be an issue going forward. Why this development is such a big deal: No effective malaria vaccine is available at present. The World Health Organization has set a target to develop a malaria vaccine with 80% efficacy by 2025, but until now, says [Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases], “we have not even gotten anywhere near that level of efficacy.” theverge/2013/8/9/4604006/us-agencies-say-sanaria-PfSPZ-may-be-malaria-vaccine-breakthrough
Posted on: Fri, 09 Aug 2013 23:43:02 +0000
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