First Malarial Vaccine Found

An experimental vaccine produced by pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline has reduced by half the risk of African children getting malaria in a major clinical trial. This makes it likely to become the world’s first major breakthrough against the deadly disease.

The new data, presented yesterday at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Malaria Forum conference in Seattle, United States and published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine, were the first from a final stage Phase III clinical trial conducted at 11 trial sites in seven countries across sub Saharan Africa.

The final-stage trial data released yesterday 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,” Reuters quoted Andrew Witty, chief executive of the British drug maker that developed the vaccine along with the non-profit PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) as saying.

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 trials in Ghana, told Reuters at a conference in Seattle about the disease.

Malaria is endemic in more than 100 countries worldwide and killed around 781,000 people in 2009, according to the World Health Organisation.

Control measures such as insecticide- treated bednets, indoor spraying and the use of combination anti-malaria drugs have helped cut the numbers of malaria cases and deaths significantly in recent years, but experts say an effective vaccine is vital to complete the fight against the disease.

The trial is still going on, but researchers who analysed data from the first 6,000 children found that after 12 months of follow-up, three doses of RTS, S reduced the risk of children experiencing clinical malaria and severe malaria by 56 percent and 47 percent respectively. “We are very happy with the results. We have never been closer to having a successful malaria vaccine,” said Christian Loucq, director of PATH MVI, who was at the Seattle conference.

Loucq added that widespread use of insecticide-treated bednets in the trial -- by 75 percent of people taking part -- showed that RTS,S can provide significant protection on top of other existing malaria control methods. Results in babies aged six to 12 weeks are expected in a year’s time and, if all goes well, GSK believes the vaccine could reach the market in 2015.

Getting it to the African infants that need it will take a concerted effort from international funders, such as the Gates Foundation that helped pay for the research. Health experts say it must be cheap enough to be cost-effective. Witty declined to say if a course of three shots would cost under $10 but told reporters RTS,S would be priced as low as possible.

The company has previously said it will charge only the cost of manufacture plus a 5 percent mark-up, which will be reinvested into tropical disease research. “We are not going to make any money from this project,” Witty said.

Malaria is caused by a parasite carried in the saliva of mosquitoes. The RTS,S vaccine is designed to kick in when the parasite enters the human bloodstream after a mosquito bite. By stimulating an immune response, it can prevent the parasite from maturing and multiplying in the liver.