This is not the most effective malaria vaccine. Three doses of intravenous PfSPZ-CVac is more effective.
The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
121–130 of 289 posts
Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
#122This 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.
Well, the attempt in Brazil did not go as planned: https://www.dw.com/en/genetically-modified-mosquitoes-breed-...
"The hope of the Ministry of Health was to reduce mosquito populations by 90 percent. And this worked well during the field trial. About 18 months after the end of the experiment, the mosquito population returned to what it had been before."
Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
#123What 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?
Malaria is an endemic disease in parts of Africa (constant occurrence in a population). An epidemic is a disease rapidly spreading in a population (sudden outbreak). Pandemic is a worldwide outbreak.
Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
#124Is it possible to get herd immunity to malaria? Does the parasite have non-human reservoirs (for the non-mosquito part of its lifecycle)?
The parasite has non-human reservoirs, which is one of many reasons that eradicating malaria is extremely difficult. That being said, a protective vaccine even absent herd immunity would be a huge thing.
Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
AFAIK it's more about West Nile and EEE, maybe Zika and even others.
Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
The most successful measure was carpet bombing the USA with DDT for years[1]. Most people don't know this now, but malaria used to be endemic in the USA as far north as the border with Canada. DDT's environmental persistence is obviously a double-edged sword, but it made the eradication possible. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/elimination_us.htm...
I don't mean to be crass, but why wouldn't that have worked in Africa? Yes DDT is scary bad, but we seem to be doing ok in the US.
We tried it in Africa. A lot. DDT is great - it's cheap, it's persistent, and there was a heady note of optimism that we might be able to drive malaria to extinction via vector control.
Then DDT-resistance developed in the mosquitos.
Combined with the health and ecological concerns around it, its use was largely halted. It's been reinvigorated recently as malaria incidence has rose, but it's a trade-off that it would be nice to minimize with other approaches.
Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
#127Are any of the mosquito extinction approaches being seriously tried? Genetic engineering, etc.?
Vector control is the primary way that epidemiology and disease ecology have been exploring reducing the burden of malaria (and Dengue, and a number of other diseases).
Genetically engineered, effectively sterile mosquito breeds are part of that effort. But that is hard to do - ecological systems are hard to push off stable equilibria.
Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
#128Having personally had Malaria twice, I am elated at this news. It was fascinating to experience it from "the inside" in Africa, and attempt to understand how essentially everyone gets it, every single year. It's simply a part of life there.
One of my Kenyan colleagues casually talked about every time she visited her grandmother, they came down with malaria.
Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
#129Curious to know how much money they spent on this vaccine while there is already a treatment for malaria - it's called Artemisia Annua. Ans big pharma is doing everything it can to dismiss that almost free solution to the problem.
"Big Pharma" has been providing antimalarials pretty much at cost through negotiations with the WHO and other international funders for quite some time now. But cheap drugs - especially since Artemisinin needs to be used as part of a combination therapy - aren't an easy solution to the malaria belt's woes.
Re: The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Well, the attempt in Brazil did not go as planned: https://www.dw.com/en/genetically-modified-mosquitoes-breed-... "The hope of the Ministry of Health was to reduce mosquito populations by 90 percent. And this worked well during the field trial. About 18 months after the end of the experiment, the mosquito population returned to what it had been before."
Indeed. Ecological systems are complicated and remarkably resilient.