The World Health Organisation has authorised a new malaria vaccine. The R-21 vaccine, developed by Oxford University scientists, is only the second to be created. The WHO has said while the previous vaccine is also effective, the new vaccine can be manufactured at a much larger scale, and would offer countries a cheaper option.It might not be a disease you've thought about unless you're holidaying abroad, but malaria remains one of the most severe public health problems worldwide.
“In areas with seasonal transmission, it's reduced symptomatic cases of malaria by 75% in the 12 months following a three dose series of the vaccine. A fourth dose given a year after the third was shown to maintain protection. As a malaria researcher I used to dream of the day when we would have a safe and effective vaccine against malaria. Now we have two.”
It has been just two years since W-H-O approved the previous vaccine, called R-T-S-S, with both these vaccines building off of over a century of scientific research. But why has one of the deadliest illnesses to plague humanity taken so long to combat effectively? “Most of the focus is on Africa, because that's where most of the malaria is. There's four or five different malaria parasites that can infect humans, and the one known as falciparum malaria causes the greatest mortality. And 90 per cent of falciparum malaria is in Africa. And these vaccines that have been developed are only against falciparum malaria.”
Sarah Tolentino is a nurse based on the New South Wales South Coast who spent years on the frontlines of the malaria crisis in Uganda. She says it's an issue that particularly affected those who had very little material wealth.
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