Experts say that if malaria is to be defeated, the
battle against it must be unrelenting
British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline is
seeking regulatory approval for the world's first malaria vaccine after trial
data showed that it had cut the number of cases in African children.
Experts say that they are optimistic about the possibility of the world's
first vaccine after the trial results.
Malaria, a mosquito-borne parasitic disease, kills hundreds of thousands of
people worldwide every year.
Scientists say an effective vaccine is key to attempts to eradicate it.
The vaccine known as RTS,S was found to have almost halved the number of
malaria cases in young children in the trial and to have reduced by about 25%
the number of malaria cases in infants.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is developing RTS,S with the non-profit Path Malaria
Vaccine Initiative (MVI), supported by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation.
"Many millions of malaria cases fill the wards of our hospitals," said
Halidou Tinto, a lead investigator on the RTS,S trial from Burkina Faso.
Malaria is caused by protozoan parasites that are
transmitted by the bites of mosquitoes
"Progress is being made with bed nets and other measures, but we need more
tools to battle this terrible disease."
The malaria trial was Africa's largest-ever clinical trial involving almost
15,500 children in seven countries.
The findings were presented at a medical meeting in Durban, South Africa.
"Based on these data, GSK now intends to submit, in 2014, a regulatory
application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA)," GSK said in a
statement..
The company has been developing the vaccine for three decades,
The statement said that the hope now is that the Geneva-based World Health
Organization (WHO) may recommend the use of the RTS,S vaccine from as early as
2015 if EMA drugs regulators back its licence application.
Testing showed that 18 months after vaccination, children aged five to 17
months had a 46% reduction in the risk of clinical malaria compared to
unvaccinated contemporaries.
But in infants aged six to 12 weeks at the time of vaccination, there was
only a 27% reduction in risk.
A spokeswoman for GSK told the AFP news agency that the company would file
its application to the EMA under a process aimed at facilitating new drugs for
poorer countries.
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