Malaria vaccine found safe and protective

A team of researchers found an investigational malaria vaccine has to be safe, to generate an immune system response, and to offer protection against malaria infection in healthy adults. Malaria is transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected mosquito. After the bite occurs, infectious malaria parasites in the immature, sporozoite stage of their life cycle first travel to the liver, where they multiply, and then spread through the bloodstream, at which time symptoms develop. The vaccine, known as PfSPZ Vaccine, was developed by scientists at Sanaria Inc., of Rockville, Md. The clinical evaluation was conducted by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and their collaborators at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the Naval Medical Research Center, both in Silver Spring, Md. The PfSPZ Vaccine is composed of live but weakened sporozoites of the species Plasmodium falciparum,...