Malaria vaccine: the first success
The combined malaria vaccine has passed the first phase of trials
Denis Strigun, Naked Science
Malaria includes a group of diseases transmitted to humans through the bites of mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles. The causative agents of malaria are the protozoa of the genus Plasmodium (often - Plasmodium falciparum). When infected, the protists settle in the liver, where they multiply, and then spread through the bloodstream. Symptoms of the disease (fever, chills) develop in about 15 days.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 212 million cases of malaria infection were registered in the world in 2015, 430 thousand of which resulted in death. Despite numerous studies, there is no universal cure for this group of diseases. The PfSPZ vaccine and the chloroquine drug are considered promising.
Past observations have shown that PfSPZ, which involves injections of weakened plasmodium sporozoites, can provide protection against malaria in 90 percent of cases. In turn, chloroquine is able to suppress the activity of some Plasmodium species, with the exception of P. falciparum. In a new work, scientists from the University of Tübingen and other institutions combined these drugs (Mordmüller et al., Sterile protection against human malaria by chemoattenuated PfSPZ vaccine).
67 healthy volunteers took part in the experiment, which were divided into three groups. The first group was administered low (3.2 × 10 3), the second – moderate (1.28 × 10 4) doses of PfSPZ-CVac at different intervals. The third group received three high (5.12 × 10.4) doses of the drug at intervals of five or 28 days. Ten weeks after vaccination, the subjects were infected with malaria in a controlled manner.
The results showed that all participants from the third group who received injections with an interval of 28 days were resistant to infection. The five-day interval reduced this indicator by half, in the first and second groups, the resistance to malaria was 33-67 percent. The next step will be the second phase of testing and testing the effect of the vaccine in the long term.
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16.02.2017