First ‘Malaria jab’ gets approved

The world’s first malaria vaccine has received a go-ahead from The European drugs regulators.

Even though the parasite causing malaria, Plasmodium, was first identified in 1880, and the role of mosquitoes in its spread was discovered in 1898, developing a vaccine has been very hard because Plasmodium has a complex life cycle, and has evolved to specifically evade the immune response once in the body.

It remain faces challenges before being introduced in Africa, as well as profitable accord from states together with other funders that it must be worthy of utilizing, given it will provide only incomplete safety.

Under World Health Organisation rules, the EMA’s thumbs-up was needed before WHO would consider supporting its use, which in turn helps gain approvals by African nations where malaria claims most of its victims, usually children. The WHO intends to produce a…

Andrew Witty, GSK’s chief executive, said the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) positive recommendation was a further important step towards making the world’s first malaria vaccine available. Cases in children aged 6 to 12 weeks were reduced by 27%.

GSK has not disclosed the price of the vaccine, but has assured not to make any profits from it.

Without a booster the vaccine did not cut the rate of severe malaria over the trial period. The drug also didn’t prove very effective at protecting young babies from the infection.

Health experts worldwide have been hoping and waiting for the scientists to develop a vaccine against malaria for a long time now.

Furthermore, the trial results show it is crucial that children receive all four doses of the jab in order to benefit. The drug, also known as RTS’S, is the first against the infection in humans.

The vaccine is not yet licensed in countries where malaria is endemic, and the WHO says 2017 is the soonest that could happen. More than 80 percent of malaria deaths are in children under the age of five.

In 2001 a partnership was established between GSK and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, through a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with the aim of accelerating development of malaria vaccines.

In 2009, eleven centres began recruiting 16,000 children across seven countries – Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania – to begin their trials.

Prof Adrian Hill of the Jenner Institute, Oxford, said he was pleased and encouraged by the EMA’s decision but added that the vaccine was not a “magic bullet”.