Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - October 17, 2004
Andrew Donaldson

Tests carried out on more than 2000 healthy children in the southern Mozambique village of Manhica show that the vaccine blocked almost half of new infections and reduced serious malaria by almost 60%.

The results, published in The Lancet this week, have been hailed as a major breakthrough in efforts to tame a disease that kills one African child every 30 seconds - and it is now being suggested that malaria could be brought under control within a decade.

Malaria is the leading killer of children under the age of five and ranks with Aids and tuberculosis on the list of the world's most lethal diseases.

Although researchers are not sure how long the vaccine's protection will persist, even a partially effective vaccine will have great value in fighting a disease that is becoming increasingly resistant to the drugs most commonly used to treat it.

More trials are needed to confirm the vaccine's efficacy, particularly in very young children, who are most likely to die from infections. But the vaccine could be available for widespread use by 2010, experts said.

Welcoming the results of the Mozambique trials, Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, director of the World Health Organisation's Initiative for Vaccine Research, said they highlighted the "crucial role that African governments, research institutions and scientists in the malaria-endemic areas of Africa play in developing tools and strategies against this major killer of children".

Kieny said that, although many candidate vaccines have been developed over the past 25 years, this was the first that has demonstrated a significant capability to protect human adult volunteers against an experimental infection with the malaria parasite.

"The new results indicate that the vaccine induces protection against malaria in children one to four years old in Africa," said Kieny.

"Although the 57.7% reported vaccine efficacy against severe disease is less than that of classic childhood vaccines, which is often greater than 80%, the outcome of the trial is very encouraging for the future of malaria vaccines because it is the first demonstration of any efficacy against severe malaria in children."

Describing the results as "very encouraging", Jean Stephenne of GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals said: "We are facing an important milestone in the battle with malaria. We are all now committed to making this vaccine available as soon as possible."

In his reaction, Dr Wen Kilama of the African Malaria Network said malaria's impact on Africa was "like loading seven Boeing 747 airliners with people every day, then crashing them into Mount Kilimanjaro".

Each year, 500 million new cases are recorded, 90% in Africa.

As many as three million people die from it each year, one million of them children under five.

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