Malaria kills more than 400,000 people yearly, two-thirds of them under 5. The vaccine aims to help small children through the most vulnerable period.
A pinch in the leg, a squeal and a trickle of tears. One baby after another in Malawi is getting the first and only vaccine against malaria, one of history’s most deadly andThe southern African nation is rolling out the shots in an unusual pilot program along with Kenya and Ghana. Unlike established vaccines that offer near-complete protection, this new one is only about 40% effective.
In the village of Tomali, the nearest health clinic is a two-hour bike ride away. The longer it takes to get care, the more dangerous malaria can be. Teams from the clinic offer basic medical care during visits once or twice a month, bringing the malaria shot and other vaccines in portable coolers. “We don’t have any vaccines against parasites in routine use. This is uncharted territory,” said Ashley Birkett, who directs PATH’s Malaria Vaccine Initiative, a nonprofit that helped drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline develop the shot, brand-named Mosquirix.
And the U.S. National Institutes of Health soon will start initial tests of whether injecting people periodically with lab-made antibodies, rather than depending on the immune system to make them, could offer temporary protection during malaria season. Think of them as “potentially short-term vaccines,” NIH’s Dr. Robert Seder told a recent meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
Mzengeza used to come down with malaria several times a year until she started following her own advice to sleep under a net every night. Unlike many other kinds of infections, people can get malaria repeatedly, building up only a partial immunity.last year, 360,000 children in the three countries are meant to be vaccinated annually. The first dose is given at about 5 months and the final, fourth booster near the child’s second birthday.
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