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    October 18, 2011

Babies in Africa Respond Well in Malaria Vaccine Trials

   VOA News

   An international team of researchers says clinical trials testing the
   efficacy and safety of a new malaria vaccine have shown promising
   results in very young children in seven African countries hosting the
   study.
   A total of 15,460 children, divided into two age groups, took part in
   the latest phase of clinical trials, conducted between March 2009 and
   January 2011. The researchers say the new RTS,S vaccine provided
   significant protection against both clinical and severe malaria for one
   year in a group of 6,000 children who ranged in age from five months to
   17 months and received all three doses of the medicine.
   The second group of children in the trials consists of infants between
   six and 12 weeks old. The vaccine's one-year efficacy results for this
   group are expected in late 2012.
   The scientists say the clinical trials' final data are expected by the
   end of 2014.
   The RTS,S vaccine is being developed by the Britain-based global
   pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline, in partnership with the PATH
   Malaria Vaccine Initiative, an internationally-funded research group.
   Malaria is a life-threatening disease that is preventable and curable.
   The World Health Organization, WHO, says a child in Africa dies of
   malaria every 45 seconds.
   The new RTS,S vaccine study is published online in The New England
   Journal of Medicine.
   The WHO estimates there were 225 million cases of malaria worldwide in
   2010, and 781,000 malaria deaths in 2009. The WHO and other
   organizations say the vast majority of cases and deaths occur in
   sub-Saharan Africa, and most of those victims are young children.
   Malaria is caused by blood parasites that are transmitted from
   person-to-person through the bites of infected mosquitoes.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

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