New malaria vaccine generates robust immune response

A new malaria vaccine candidate has been found to generate robust immune response while significantly delaying arasitemia in 59 per cent of vaccinated subjects, according to a first-of-its-kind in-human study. Plasmodium vivax malaria is challenging to control because it can be dormant, causing no symptoms, and then become active causing symptomatic malaria weeks to months after initial infection. The vaccine candidate, developed by researchers at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) in the US and tested jointly with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to prevent vivax malaria infection, is the first in-human study of its kind under an investigational new drug application with the US Food and Drug Administration. WRAIR researchers immunised 30 volunteers with three doses of the vaccine candidate. Immunised volunteers took part in WRAIR’s well-established controlled human malaria infection (CHMI) model where they were bitten by malaria-infected mosquitoes. The efficacy of the vaccine candidate was then determined based on whether or...