The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered • Hacker News Board

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#111

Post by 0-_-0 » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #5

What blows me away is in a study group of 734 infants, which benefited from maternal antibodies against malaria, 717 were infected by malaria in the first year of their life. That's nearly 100%, in the first year since birth. That's devastating. The vaccine is showing 77% efficacy in trials in Burkina Faso. That's an ongoing pandemic that makes covid-19 look like a case of the sniffles. Malaria deaths peaked around 9…

"... somewhere in the region of 150 million to 300 million people have died from the effects of malaria during the past 100 years. If it is taken that around 6,000 million people have died during this period, malaria may be reckoned to have been a factor in between 2 and 5% of all deaths across the planet in the 20th century." [0]

[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC126857/

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#112

Post by amalcon » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #49

throwaway5752 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's incorrect to say it looks like sniffles in comparison. This is basically severity / priority in software. If we left sars-covid-19 without mitigation for a century, it would catch up rapidly. You compare things over relevant intervals. There are far more influenza deaths over the last 3 decades than ebola, but ebola is far more severe and greater concern.

> If we left sars-covid-19 without mitigation for a century, it would catch up rapidly. I think that's probably wrong? The most likely outcome would be that after the initial pandemic subsided (with lots of deaths), most people would catch it when they were reasonably young and then be mostly protected. This is different from malaria, which is much more deadly.

It is as yet unclear how long effective immunity lasts after catching the disease, but pessimistic estimates put it at less than six months. While the pessimistic estimates are likely wrong (hence the term "pessimistic"), there certainly isn't confidence in the sort of lifelong immunity that one gets to some other contagions.

Part of what's so exciting about the vaccines is that the antibodies seem to decay at a slower rate, meaning that it could result in longer immunity (though we obviously don't know for sure yet).

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#113

Post by Fomite » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

yyyk wrote: post #108

This is great news which will save many lives. We will need to do more though. There are species of Plasmodium which survive on non-human hosts which means the disease will always be waiting - and this vaccination regimen is very demanding, so interruption or underinvestment will make Malaria come back. IMHO to finish off malaria we'll need some other approaches to complement it, and my suggestion is to get rid of th…

There's a lot of debate in the field as to whether or not it's actually possible to eradicate malaria. Partially because mosquito eradication programs failed in the core "malaria belt" even with substantial international investment.

There is work on this though, primarily around introducing genetically modified mosquitos.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#114

Post by Fomite » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

Exmoor wrote: post #11

eloff wrote: post #5

What blows me away is in a study group of 734 infants, which benefited from maternal antibodies against malaria, 717 were infected by malaria in the first year of their life. That's nearly 100%, in the first year since birth. That's devastating. The vaccine is showing 77% efficacy in trials in Burkina Faso. That's an ongoing pandemic that makes covid-19 look like a case of the sniffles. Malaria deaths peaked around 9…

> Malaria deaths peaked around 930,000 a year in 2004, and is around 600,000 a year now Your link does a good job showing this, but for those who don't click and scroll down it's probably worth mentioning that the vast majority of those deaths are in central Africa. So it's not just a lot of deaths, but it's a really significant portion of the population and, as you said, mostly children.

Malaria is a massive drain on the lives, well being and economies of central Africa. An effective malaria vaccine would be huge.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#115

Post by Fomite » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 9:40 PM UTC

todd8 wrote: post #82

eloff wrote: post #5

What blows me away is in a study group of 734 infants, which benefited from maternal antibodies against malaria, 717 were infected by malaria in the first year of their life. That's nearly 100%, in the first year since birth. That's devastating. The vaccine is showing 77% efficacy in trials in Burkina Faso. That's an ongoing pandemic that makes covid-19 look like a case of the sniffles. Malaria deaths peaked around 9…

Although some posts suggest that the USA may experience malaria at some point in the future because of global warming; in actuality, the USA has already experienced malaria. In 1882, the range of malaria in the USA extended from the Canadian border on the north to southern border with Mexico on the south. The only states of the current 48 contiguous states unaffected were Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Main, Vermont,…

There's a reason the CDC is in Atlanta.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#116

Post by brianwawok » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 9:41 PM UTC

cmckn wrote: post #107

todd8 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although some posts suggest that the USA may experience malaria at some point in the future because of global warming; in actuality, the USA has already experienced malaria. In 1882, the range of malaria in the USA extended from the Canadian border on the north to southern border with Mexico on the south. The only states of the current 48 contiguous states unaffected were Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Main, Vermont,…

I grew up in Alabama, and remember a few times a summer seeing the "mosquito truck" drive by, spraying pesticide as I played in the yard. I guess it works!

I don't think we do it for malaria these days, just to reduce mosquito stings? Thinking about like mosquito sprays in Chicago...

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#117

Post by Fomite » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 9:41 PM UTC

shoto_io wrote: post #96

eloff wrote: post #5

What blows me away is in a study group of 734 infants, which benefited from maternal antibodies against malaria, 717 were infected by malaria in the first year of their life. That's nearly 100%, in the first year since birth. That's devastating. The vaccine is showing 77% efficacy in trials in Burkina Faso. That's an ongoing pandemic that makes covid-19 look like a case of the sniffles. Malaria deaths peaked around 9…

Absolutely. Malaria is the reason why mosquitos are considered the species most dangerous for humans. Btw, I don't think it's a pandemic since it doesn't affect the entire globe. It's an epidemic, isn't it?

These are somewhat fuzzy terms, because pandemic or epidemic both imply unexpected numbers of cases, not just "lots" of cases.

For the most part, malaria is considered an endemic disease with a high incidence rate.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#118

Post by lswainemoore » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

jjk166 wrote: post #106

jjeaff wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for the age difference of the victims, those numbers actually make covid seem pretty bad. Covid has hardly been around for a year and is killing 7x as many people a year.

Those are the numbers for a single country. Malaria kills 1-3 million people per year globally.

Unless I'm misreading the link, those numbers (~600k/yr) are global. Still, staggeringly high, and concentrated in a region.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#119

Post by Fomite » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 9:44 PM UTC

lastofthemojito wrote: post #77

coliveira wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wealthy nations don't care about malaria because it happens only in poor countries. Maybe global warming will make them finally take notice.

I get what you mean: Malaria vaccines never got a sudden rush of Manhattan-Project-esque funding like COVID-19 vaccines. But according to the study, funding for this research was provided by "The European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), The Wellcome Trust and the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre". The EDCTP is funded by the European Union as well as the individual member countries. T…

Malaria eradication did get a massive Manhattan Project-esq push. It just failed.

Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered

#120

Post by Fomite » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

coliveira wrote: post #70

eloff wrote: post #5

What blows me away is in a study group of 734 infants, which benefited from maternal antibodies against malaria, 717 were infected by malaria in the first year of their life. That's nearly 100%, in the first year since birth. That's devastating. The vaccine is showing 77% efficacy in trials in Burkina Faso. That's an ongoing pandemic that makes covid-19 look like a case of the sniffles. Malaria deaths peaked around 9…

The wealthy nations don't care about malaria because it happens only in poor countries. Maybe global warming will make them finally take notice.

As an infectious disease epidemiologist, after HIV, malaria is probably the next most closely studied and well-funded infectious disease we look into. It's also been a WHO priority for basically the entire existence of the WHO.