Every second, seven people somewhere on Earth encounter one of humankind’s most prolific killers: a shape-shifting parasite carried in the saliva of female mosquitoes that can evade our immune systems and live in our livers and blood cells. Every two minutes, the parasite claims another victim under the age of five years old—and brings another round of heartbreak and loss. This grim cycle plays out very hour, every day, every week, every year.
For more than a decade, Halidou Tinto has squared off against this killer. Tinto, an epidemiologist, expert on malaria, and a regional director of Burkina Faso’s Institute of Research in Health Sciences, serves the district of Nanoro, some 50 miles northwest of the capital Ouagadougou. With the arrival of the African monsoon each summer, malaria cases spike in Nanoro and communities across the country. Burkina Faso, a country of 20 million, records about 11 million malaria cases a year—as well as 4,000 deaths.
But after months of speaking with local families about participating in a new malaria vaccine trial, years of experience with running medical trials in the area, and decades of global research behind him, Tinto’s site in Nanoro is home to something else: hope.
In a study published in The Lancet on Wednesday, an international team has shared promising new data on a potential vaccine. The phase two trial, based on 450 children in Nanoro, evaluated the R21 malaria vaccine candidate, which has been under development in the United Kingdom for more than a decade. Researchers found that after children received three shots in an eight-week period and a booster 12 months later, the R21 vaccine was 77 percent effective at stopping malaria, when compared against a control rabies vaccine, rather than a standard placebo.
R21 is the first vaccine candidate for malaria to cross the 75 percent threshold, a goal the World Health Organization (WHO) first set in 2013. If borne out in bigger trials, R21 could add another powerful tool to the world’s malaria-fighting toolkit.
“We are enthusiastic, but we still need phase three trials to confirm the efficacy and the safety of the vaccine before we move on,” says Tinto, one of the study’s senior authors.
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It seems we are closer to getting a working vaccine for this disease. I find this very encouraging. For years malaria has been a really devastating illness in Africa and South Asia. Developing effective inoculation against it would go a long way in improving the quality of life for Africans, particularly those in areas greatly affected by this sickness.
Thoughts, NSG? Do you think we’ll eventually have a malaria vaccine? How long before we do, do you estimate? If we were able to do it for CoVID19 (so far), can we do it for an illness that has brought so much heartbreak and loss to Africa?