New malaria vaccine aces clinical trials

With mosquitoes being the primary carrier of malaria, the battle against the disease has been fought at every step of the disease’s development: from reducing mosquito populations, to preventing them from biting humans, to dealing with the parasites introduced by the insect after infection occurs. A new vaccine that introduces live malaria parasites into the bloodstream has just undergone clinical trials in humans, and has been shown to provide long-term protection with effectiveness of up to 100 percent. According to the latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO), 212 million cases of malaria were reported in 2015, resulting in almost 430,000 deaths, and of those cases, 90 percent occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. The main culprit is the Anopheles mosquito, the bite of which transmits parasites like the Plasmodium falciparum, responsible for the majority of malaria infections and deaths. For years, scientists have fought to control the spread of the disease through a...