Malaria Vaccine Trials Kick Off

Vaccine trials for a new malaria drug are beginning today, Tuesday, in Malawi. The project will also extend to Kenya and Ghana next week with plans to immunise 120,000 children aged two or younger.

The countries were selected for participation because of the high incidence of malaria and their long use of traditional interventions such as bed nets.

The drug, Mosquirix, has already passed through five years of clinical trials with indications that vaccination reduced the incident of the potentially fatal illness by 40 per cent. It has been developed by GlaxoSmithKline and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative.

If the trial is successful it could save thousands of lives. Children are particularly susceptible to the disease.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) the number of malaria cases increased to 219 million in 2017, up from 217 million. Increased resistance of mosquitos to some insecticides is considered to be a factor.