Malarial Vaccine

Malaria is not caused by 'bad air', as the name implies. It's actually a human disease transmitted by the bite of a female (she needs blood to make her eggs) Anopheles mosquito. As she bites, the fly injects saliva to stop the blood coagulating. If the mosquito is infected by a single-celled parasite called Plasmodium (there are 5 species that infect humans), her bite transmits this organism (a Protist) into the human host. The parasite then damages the red blood cells of the host. The host can also infect other biting mosquitoes who can transmit the disease. Malaria has had devastating effects on human populations, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Here, it kills around 400,000 people (mainly young children) every year. People have tried to bump off the mosquito vector but this has proved difficult. Until now, the main protection for humans have been insect repellants and insecticide-impregnated mosquito nets. The nets reduce the probability of sleeping people (especially children) being bitten. The disease has not been a focus for pharmaceutical companies. It is said that this is because people in malarial zones were too poor to pay for the research/development. It is consequently excellent news that Oxford University's Jenner Institute have now developed a vaccine against malaria. This vaccine has now been subject to a 12 month trial in Burkino Faso. It was found to have a 77% efficacy in terms of protecting recipients from malaria. 77% is extremely good but the vaccine may need tweaks to deal with variants of the parasite. Nice, however, to see a medical development, where profits were not the sole driver!