Breakthrough malaria vaccine tantalizingly close – CNN.com
Posted: October 18, 2011 Filed under: Malaria, Vaccine | Tags: malaria, vaccine Leave a commentThe vaccine is designed specifically for children because their immune systems are still developing, making them the easiest prey for the parasitic disease. Youngsters under the age of 5 account for the vast majority of the 800,000 people who die of the condition each year.
via Breakthrough malaria vaccine tantalizingly close – CNN.com.
BBC News – Malaria vaccine trial raises hope
Posted: October 18, 2011 Filed under: Malaria, Vaccine | Tags: malaria, vaccine Leave a commentInfants given the prototype vaccine had about half the risk of getting malaria compared with those who did not receive the jab, say researchers.
The vaccine, known as RTS,S, is one of two experimental malaria vaccines being tested around the world.
More than 15,000 children aged under 18 months took part in the year-long study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine .
The trial was conducted in seven African countries on two groups of children – newborns aged six-12 weeks – and babies aged five-17 months.
One year on, there were about half the number of cases of malaria in the older group of children given the vaccine, compared with those in a control group who received vaccines against other illnesses.
“These data bring us to the cusp of having the world’s first malaria vaccine,” said Andrew Witty, chief executive of the British pharmaceutical company, GSK, which developed the vaccine alongside the non-profit PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative.
via BBC News – Malaria vaccine trial raises hope.
Op-ed written by Dr. Peter Hotez published in the Houston Chronicle: School takes on ancient scourges | Sabin Vaccine Institute
Posted: October 17, 2011 Filed under: Houston, Vaccine | Tags: vaccine Leave a commentTexas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine are determined to make a difference in the lives of 100 million people in these cities, and indeed all of the “bottom billion” – the world’s 1.4 billion poorest people – by fighting the diseases that help trap them in poverty, including hookworm, elephantiasis, river blindness, schistosomiasis, leprosy, leishmaniasis and Chagas disease. To that end, we are establishing Baylor College of Medicine’s fourth school, the National School of Tropical Medicine, and moving the Sabin Vaccine Laboratories to the Feigin Center at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Vector-Borne Disease News 