I recently did some private study on malaria and the development of the RTS,S vaccine which is "the first malaria vaccine candidate to ever reach large-scale Phase III clinical testing" (http://tinyurl.com/cm6q6zx). You can find about the outline of clinical trials on the 'Clinical Trials' page.
What I found was that although there are currently ways of preventing malaria or treatments that are available once malaria is contracted, a lot of them take time to teach people how to use them and other solutions have to be replaced after a certain time period. For example; I looked at LLIN's and ITN's and the comparison between them. I found that LLIN's (long-lasting insecticide-treated mosquito nets) were of a better standard than ITN's (insecticide-treated mosquito nets) because they last around 3 years opposed to 12-18 months. This means that the distributor (mainly the WHO) does not have to go back to the same place every year but can distribute further afield or spend time funding other projects.
Another solution are antimalarial drugs, but mosquitoes are becoming/have become resistant to certain drugs; as was reported today; "scientists have found new evidence that resistance to the front-line treatments for malaria is increasing" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17628172).
IRS (indoor residual spray) is another option but there are issues to do with the component of the spray; DDT (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) which is thought by many to have environmental impacts and also health impacts, although the WHO disagrees and; "announced that this intervention will once again play a major role in its efforts to fight the disease; Dr Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, WHO Assistant Director-General for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria said; DDT presents no health risk when used properly” (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr50/en/).
Therefore, the newest development in the fight against malaria to prevent the disease that affects millions of people every year is the RTS,S vaccine. It has been under development for 25 years and is the most clinically advanced malaria vaccine there has ever been and there has been a huge amount of investment in the development by a number of huge companies.
In terms of issues of cost, organisation, transportation to the areas where the vaccine is needed i.e. sub-Saharan Africa and administering the vaccine to the patients; I think that these will all be overcome by the co-operation between GlaxoSmithKline Biologists and organisations such as the WHO but also through the governments of the countries that need the vaccine for their people. The amount of people that will be saved by this vaccine in the future is worth more than the effort that is needed for organisation of producing and distribution of the vaccine itself.
What I found was that although there are currently ways of preventing malaria or treatments that are available once malaria is contracted, a lot of them take time to teach people how to use them and other solutions have to be replaced after a certain time period. For example; I looked at LLIN's and ITN's and the comparison between them. I found that LLIN's (long-lasting insecticide-treated mosquito nets) were of a better standard than ITN's (insecticide-treated mosquito nets) because they last around 3 years opposed to 12-18 months. This means that the distributor (mainly the WHO) does not have to go back to the same place every year but can distribute further afield or spend time funding other projects.
Another solution are antimalarial drugs, but mosquitoes are becoming/have become resistant to certain drugs; as was reported today; "scientists have found new evidence that resistance to the front-line treatments for malaria is increasing" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17628172).
IRS (indoor residual spray) is another option but there are issues to do with the component of the spray; DDT (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) which is thought by many to have environmental impacts and also health impacts, although the WHO disagrees and; "announced that this intervention will once again play a major role in its efforts to fight the disease; Dr Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, WHO Assistant Director-General for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria said; DDT presents no health risk when used properly” (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr50/en/).
Therefore, the newest development in the fight against malaria to prevent the disease that affects millions of people every year is the RTS,S vaccine. It has been under development for 25 years and is the most clinically advanced malaria vaccine there has ever been and there has been a huge amount of investment in the development by a number of huge companies.
Results from the Phase III trials were released in 2009 by the "New England Journal of Medicine". On their website there are a number of interesting tables and graphs to show the effectiveness/efficacy of the vaccine and the methods of trialling it, who they administered it too and the effects that the vaccine had. One table that I found very interesting was to do with 'serious adverse effects' (7th table on the right hand side (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1102287#t=articleResults)). The results look shocking when you see how many more adverse effects there were in the malaria group than the control drug, but then I noticed that the group that it was administered was double that of the control in both the '6-12 week' and '5-17 month' test groups. This seems to point towards the age groups that this drug will be administered in and leads to the question of safety for the children that it is being tested in; but as the tables data shows (and the other data), it appears to be a very safe vaccine.
I would say that the RTS,S vaccine is a very good solution to the issue of malaria control. I think that it would be very effective if used in combination with other alternative malaria controls such as LLIN’s (which I feel would be a lot more successful than ITN’s) and also IRS. I think that GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals and other biological companies should continue their work and strive to develop a second generation malaria vaccine that performs even better than the first generation RTS,S vaccine.
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