Malaria vaccine to debut in 2015

British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 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, an AFP news agency report said yesterday.Experts say that they are optimistic about the possibility of the world’s first vaccine after the trial results. Malaria, […]

British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 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, an AFP news agency report said yesterday.
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. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimatesthat Nigeria loses over 207,701 annually to malaria.
Nigeria’s coordinator of National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP), Dr. Nnenne Ezeigwe said recently in an interview with Daily Trust that malaria costs the country more than N480 billion in lost manpower, treatment and care needs.
In the last couple of decades, combination therapies based on Artemisinin have emerged as more effective, after resistance to Chloroquine was discovered. Unfortunately, the parasite responsible for malaria-Plasmodium Falciparum-has become smart over the years, evolving to become resistant to Chloroquine, Ezeigwe said.
“The global scientific community’s rule of thumb is straightforward: with diseases caused by viruses, vaccination is the target; but disease caused by organisms other than viruses might potentially be treatable. However, the onslaught of malaria has made it worthwhile to consider a vaccine,” Ezeigwe told Daily Trust.
Scientists say an effective vaccine is key to attempts to eradicate it.
The vaccine known as RTSS was found to have almost reduced by 50% 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. GSK is developing RTSS 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 RTSS trial from Burkina Faso. “Progress is being made with bed nets and other measures, but we need more tools to battle this terrible disease,” he said.
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 WHO may recommend the use of the RTSS 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 children. But in infants aged six to twelve 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. Resistance to drugs has made Nigeria’s battle with malaria difficult. More than 30% of the global malaria burden is in Africa, and Nigeria accounts for a quarter, statistics have revealed.
Dr. Nicholas Baamlong, consultant family physician at University of Abuja Teaching Hospital observed that on any day, the General Outpatient Department at University of Abuja Teaching Hospital sees up to 280 patients. Nearly half of all patients coming to hospital daily are suspected cases of malaria, he said.
The most recent Malaria Indicator Survey estimates malaria prevalence at 42%, affecting children under age five more than any other population. Ironically, the prevalence increases with age but decreases with wealth.