The vaccine, known as the PfSPZ Vaccine, contains weakened live sporozoites, which is the form of the parasite that infects humans.
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The study involved 109 healthy men and non-pregnant women from Mali, Africa. The participants received either five doses of the intravenous PfSPZ Vaccine or five doses of placebo (saline) over five months of the dry season. Researchers then monitored the participants during the six-month rainy season when malaria is transmitted.
The study shows that among the 40 participants who received five doses of saline, 93 percent developed Plasmodium falciparum malaria infections. However, only 66 percent of the PfSPZ Vaccine-receiving participants developed the infection. The primary study analysis shows that the vaccine demonstrated a “48 percent protective efficacy by time-to-first positive malaria blood smear and 29 percent efficacy by proportion of participants with at least one positive malaria blood smear during a full 20-week malaria transmission season.”
“This level of sustained efficacy against malaria infection in a region with an intense transmission season has not been seen in previous malaria vaccine studies in Africa,” said co-principal investigators Sara Healy, MD, of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Laboratory of Malaria Immunology and Vaccinology. “It is a very encouraging finding that we can, hopefully, build upon.”
In 2015, there were around 212 million malaria cases and an estimated 429 000 malaria deaths. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be burdened with a disproportionately high share of global malaria cases, according to the World Health Organization.
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