After decades of disappointing results, recent findings have revived hopes for an effective vaccine against malaria, which kills some 400,000 people every year, most of them children. An experimental vaccine that targets the most dangerous form of the malaria parasite was found to have an efficacy of 74% to 77% after 1 year in children from West Africa.

The results come from a small trial of a vaccine developed by researchers at the University of Oxford’s Jenner Institute involving 450 toddlers in Burkina Faso, where malaria is endemic.

Vaccine efficacy (VE) was 74% (95% CI, 63-82) and 77% (95% CI, 67-84) in the low- and high-dose adjuvant groups, respectively. The Oxford Vaccine, Made In Yeast, Consists Of Hepatitis B Surface Protein Combined With A Piece Of A Protein That Coats The Surface Of The Malaria Parasite When It First Invades Its Human Host. 

Source: sciencemag.org