Faster Please: Malaria Vaccine Works In First Major Trial

Malaria, a scourge for much of the world, and which is responsible for more than million of deaths annually (and 350 million cases annually), may finally have met its match. After decades of studies and attempts at a vaccine to prevent the illness, scientists may have found a winning combination in preventing the disease via a vaccine. It isn't a panacea, but it's better than anything else out there:

An experimental vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline halved the risk of African children getting malaria in a major clinical trial, making it likely to become the world's first shot against the deadly disease.

Final-stage trial data released on Tuesday showed it gave protection against clinical and severe malaria in five- to 17-month-olds in Africa, where the mosquito-borne disease kills hundreds of thousands of children a year.

"These data bring us to the cusp of having the world's first malaria vaccine," said Andrew Witty, chief executive of the British drugmaker that developed the vaccine along with the non-profit PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI).

While hailing an unprecedented achievement, Witty, malaria scientists and global health experts stressed that the vaccine -- known as RTS,S or Mosquirix -- was no quick fix for eradicating malaria. The new shot is less effective than others against common infections like polio and measles.

"We would have wished that we could wipe it out, but I think this is going to contribute to the control of malaria rather than wiping it out," Tsiri Agbenyega, a principal investigator in the RTS,S trials in Ghana, told Reuters at a conference in Seattle about the disease.

Mosquito control programs would have to remain the front line in preventing the spread of the disease, but this would be a significant improvement for the lives of millions of people in Africa.

Reason To Hope For Change In Africa

If a new malaria vaccine gets cleared by regulators as being safe for administration, a scourge of Africa could finally be brought under control and millions of people would no longer have to suffer from the debilitating effects of malaria.

If regulators determine the vaccine is safe, it could be on the market in three to five years - the first vaccine against a human parasite.

Tens of millions of Africans are plagued by malaria every year, and more than a third of the hospital beds in this rural Kenyan region next to Lake Victoria are dedicated to its victims. More than 1 million children die of the disease in Africa annually, a crippling economic drain that prolongs a cycle of disease and poverty throughout the continent.

Malaria is also prevalent in parts of Asia, the Middle East and Central and South America.

This vaccine was developed specifically for Africa, however, and will only prevent the African strain of the disease. Experts say it would be a historic advancement.

"Some may say, '50 percent, that's not great.' And that's true. If you get a measles vaccine, you're not going to get measles again," said Dr. Dave Jones, a U.S. Army colonel and director of a clinic in nearby Kombewa operated by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the Kenya Medical Research Institute.

A malaria vaccine would be one tool in reducing the incidence of malaria and would allow cash-strapped nations to focus on economic development rather than see a significant portion of their population waste away year after year.

Malaria Vaccine Shows Promise In Early Tests

Malaria kills more than a million people annually, and it is a scourge throughout much of the tropical world, particularly in Africa. A vaccine is in the works that could make it a horrible memory:

In early tests, the experimental vaccine was more than 50 percent effective in preventing the deadly disease in infants and toddlers in two countries in Africa, the scientists said. A larger and longer test is expected to begin early next year, the latest effort at slowing a disease that kills nearly 1 million people annually.

It is the first malaria vaccine to make it this far, and if further studies are successful, marketing approval could be sought as early as 2011. The vaccine was developed by the British-based GlaxoSmithKline PLC.

The results "add to our confidence that we are closer than ever before" to a malaria vaccine for African children, Dr. Christian Loucq, director of the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, said during a teleconference from New Orleans.

The nonprofit group was started with a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help develop malaria vaccines and make sure they're available where needed. The group teamed up with GlaxoSmithKline, and both paid for the vaccine studies.

The findings were presented Monday at a New Orleans meeting of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and will be in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. Some of the researchers work for the nonprofit group or the drugmaker.

Malaria is a tropical disease whose victims are mostly young children in sub-Saharan Africa. It is caused by a parasite and spread through a bite from an infected mosquito. The parasite travels quickly to the liver where it matures, enters the bloodstream and causes fever, chills, flu-like symptoms and anemia. The GlaxoSmithKline vaccine is designed to attack the parasite before it can infect the liver.

"Given the magnitude of malaria in Africa, the results represent a major milestone," said Dr. Ally Olotu, one of the researchers from Kilifi, Kenya.

The World Health Organization estimates that some 247 million people worldwide get malaria each year, but the most dangerous type is mainly in Africa. Government and private programs to control it have shown some progress in recent years with the distribution of bed nets, mosquito spraying and better malaria drugs. The United Nations announced a program in September to step up efforts against the disease with the goal of eliminating it by 2015.

A vaccine that is even partially effective could reduce the number of cases by hundreds of thousands every year. It would greatly increase the standard of living and improve the lives of tens of millions of Africans.

It can't come soon enough.

Misplaced Priorities

Bill Gates and NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg have decided to spend $500 million of their money on a worldwide anti-smoking campaign. They're rich enough and certainly can spend their money any way they want.

However, if they wanted bang for their buck, they could have spent that $500 million and improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people by using that money to eradicate malaria, rather than an anti-smoking campaign.

If you want to understand why much of the Third World remains economically precarious, all you have to do is look at the health care delivery systems in those countries and how diseases like malaria cripple countries.

Every year, 515 million people are afflicted with malaria. The world's population is just over 6 billion, which means that nearly 8.5% of the world's population is affected by malaria annually.

Countries that have dedicated themselves to reducing malaria outbreaks significantly have seen their economic conditions improve, including countries like Brazil and Vietnam.

$500 million could by a whole lot of anti-mosquito netting or insecticides that could eradicate the mosquito responsible for carrying the disease.

Yet, Gates and Bloomberg are plowing their money into the nanny state anti-smoking crusade, which affects a fraction of the number of people who are afflicted by malaria annually.