Malaria Symptoms, Prevention & Treatment: New Vaccine Traps Parasite; More Effective?

A new study published in the journal Science details how scientists are making headway in the development of a new malaria vaccine. The new vaccine uses the protective immune system cells of children who are naturally resistant to the deadly mosquito-borne infectious disease. 

The experimental vaccine is made from an anti-body generating agent that prevents the malaria parasites from multiplying. The substance or antigen is called PfSEA-1 and was seen to reduce the parasites in both women and children in malaria-endemic areas in Africa.

Dr Jonathan Kurtis, an immunologist at Brown University and senior author of the new study, along with colleagues from the National Institutes of Health, Harvard Medical School, and the University of Washington, collected samples of blood from 23 2-year-old children from Tanzania. Resistance to malaria is believed to typically develop during such age.

"The researchers then found that antibodies sent by the body's immune system to take action against this protein managed to trap the parasites inside the red blood cells, blocking the progression of the disease," writes Yahoo!  

The group of scientists then tested groups of mice with the protein and concluded that it had a hand in lowering the parasite levels, enabling the mice to live twice as long compared to those which weren't vaccinated.

According to reports, the next step for Dr. Kurtis and his group is to conduct a study of the vaccine on nonhuman primates. If the vaccine proves successful, it will move onto clinical trials in humans.

"Malaria is the single greatest killer of children on the planet. It kills one child every 15 seconds. It's an unbelievable culling machine of sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia. We need desperately a vaccine against malaria," Dr Kurtis said in a report by the Independent UK.

The recent figures of WHO estimate that 3.4 billion people are at risk of malaria, 1.2 billion of whom are high risk. The disease has killed an estimated 482 000 children under five years of age in 2012. This equates to about 1,300 children every day, or one child almost every minute.