‘Game-changing’ malaria vaccine is 77% effective at stopping infection
A malaria vaccine from the Oxford institute behind the coronavirus jab is 77 per cent effective at stopping infection, in results that suggest it could be a game changer in defeating the illness.
The new study, from clinical trials of 450 children, is published as the vaccine enters larger-scale human trials to test for rarer side-effects.
If safety is assured, health authorities say that it will become the key weapon in eliminating the disease, which is responsible for half a million deaths a year, mostly in children.
Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute in Oxford, said that the results were thrilling. Despite decades of research there is only one other vaccine against malaria and it is about 36 per cent effective.
Hill said it was imperative that regulators treated the vaccine with the same urgency as those against Covid-19. “Malaria is a public health emergency. More people died from malaria last year in Africa than Covid by a factor of at least four,” he said.
moar: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/965ba060-a39a-11eb-949b-ab1b919d4f89