AEGiS-WSJ: Malaria Vaccine For Children Makes Strides: Glaxo Treatment Reduces Severe Attacks 58% in Study; Broad Use Is Years Away

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Malaria Vaccine For Children Makes Strides: Glaxo Treatment Reduces Severe Attacks 58% in Study; Broad Use Is Years Away

Wall Street Journal - October 15, 2004
Marilyn Chase, marilyn.chase@wsj.com

Researchers took a big step toward a malaria vaccine by showing they can reduce cases of life-threatening malaria in children by more than half and milder attacks by almost a third.

Doctors from Africa, Spain and GlaxoSmithKline PLC's biologicals unit in Belgium said a Glaxo vaccine reduced severe malaria attacks 58% compared with children in a control group who received other standard shots, such as hepatitis vaccine. The Glaxo vaccine reduced milder attacks about 30% compared with the control group.

A vaccine for broad use remains years off. A product based on the Glaxo vaccine isn't expected to hit the market until at least 2010, pending further studies in infants. The experimental vaccine -- known by the code name RTS,S/AS02A -- follows two decades of work and at least "a good dozen prototypes," said the vaccine's co-inventor, Joe Cohen, director of research and development and vaccines for emerging diseases at the Belgian unit of Glaxo, based in the United Kingdom.

The study of 2,200 children ages two to four in Mozambique appears in the current issue of the British journal Lancet.

Malaria, the world's third-biggest killer after AIDS and tuberculosis, causes an estimated one million to 2.7 million deaths each year. The range is wide because many African poor die at home and uncounted. Malaria is the worst killer of African children, even worse than AIDS , which strikes more adults.

More studies are needed to test safety and effectiveness of the vaccine in children younger than 12 months old. The eventual goal is to give the vaccine as a part of the standard immunization package given to babies at about two months old. It is unknown whether the vaccine shown safe and effective in the 2-to-4 year age group will be equally safe and effective in babies. Also unknown is whether the malaria vaccine might interfere with other infant immunizations.

Melinda Moree, director of the nonprofit Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which co-sponsored the study with Glaxo, called the results a scientific breakthrough.

Other experts were more cautious. "It demonstrates that a malaria vaccine is achievable," said Regina Rabinovich of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation of Seattle. She said the study fell short of a home run because the vaccine suppressed mild attacks by only a third. Dr. Rabinovich is the former director of the Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which the Gates Foundation helped establish and fund.

One research frustration is that immunity is weaker and shorter-lived in adults than in children. Immunity in the Mozambique study was strong after six months.

Risk of malaria death declines after age two to three, said W. Ripley Ballou, Glaxo's vice president of clinical development for emerging diseases. "What we want to do is target the youngest children...and get them through that window," he says.

Drs. Cohen and Ballou are Glaxo shareholders.

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