Some Good Vaccine News

Thought I'd post some good news about vaccines for a change. This is about a disease responsible for nearly a million deaths every year. Considered one of the worst diseases to plague humanity. No...sorry...this one's not about covid...this is about...

Malaria.

A year long trial has shown promising results with a 77% efficacy, thus far the record for malaria vaccines and no safety problems so far.

The vaccine uses a circumsporozoite protein antigen, a highly conserved protein of the parasite, involved in several functions as the parasite makes the move from mosquito to human and into different human tissues such as the salivary glands.

After these succesful trials, the team is now in preparations for a larger phase 3 trial with varying seasonal and malaria loads.

This is how vaccine research is supposed to be done.

blogs.sciencemag.org...

papers.ssrn.com...

Excellent news today: we have word of the most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered. A year-long trial in Burkina Faso has shown 77% efficacy, which is by far the record, and which opens the way to potentially relieving a nearly incalculable burden of disease and human suffering.

Past studies from the Nanoro health sciences institute make this terrifyingly clear. Here’s one where they looked a cohort of 734 infants born in the area for the first year of their lives. It’s thought that children of this age have some malaria protection due to antibodies passed on from their mothers, but as the paper says, in areas of high transmission this can be overwhelmed. In those 734 infants, they recorded 717 clinical incidents of malaria infection, with the incidence rate strongly increasing as their first year went on and the great majority of these occurring in the rainy season. This 2010-2014 study from Nanoro shows the strong correlation of local malaria cases with rainfall and temperature (with a few weeks lag, as expected), and also with socioeconomic status (in exactly the direction you’re thinking). This is the clearly the sort of region where real-world tests of a malaria vaccine need to be carried out.

This new vaccine (R21) uses a circumsporozoite protein (CSP) antigen – that’s a highly conserved protein of the parasite, involved in several functions as the parasite makes the move from mosquito to human and into different human tissues such as the salivary glands. This has been a vaccine ingredient before, such as in the RTS,S vaccine (the first one ever licensed), but R21 has a much higher proportion of CSP assembled into a virus-like particle. It also uses the exact same adjuvant from Novavax (Matrix-M) that they are using in their coronavirus vaccine – you can’t keep a good adjuvant down, and this Chilean-soapbark-based one seems to really kick the immune system up under all circumstances.

The team previously run an “age-de-escalation” trial in Kenya, showing that the vaccine seemed safe as you moved down to children and infants. That led to this trial, in 450 children aged 5 to 17 months in the Nanoro area, in three groups: 150 children with 5 micrograms vaccine and 25 micrograms adjuvant, a second 150 at 5/50, and a third getting rabies vaccine as a control.

The higher-adjuvant cohort showed 77% vaccine efficacy, and the lower-adjuvant one showed 74% with (as you’d expect) overlapping confidence intervals. The first group had significantly higher antibody levels, though, and they’re currently doing an additional year of follow-up to see how long the protection lasts and if these doses differentiate themselves. The antibody levels at the one-year mark in both groups were significantly higher than with the RTS,S vaccine, and in particular, antibodies against the repeat section in the middle of the circumsporozite protein seemed to correlate strongly with protection. No safety problems so far.

The team is now planning a larger Phase III at five different African site, with varying seasonality and malaria loads.

Sounds like a legitimate trial, that's real medical science. Now they probably had to test it on more diverse populations but for now it is having good results in the people it is being tested on. People from different cultures can react different to a vaccine, that is why they now include a variety of people from different cultures. My intolerance to a class of anti-epileptic meds is because my heratage is mostly Finn and Swede, and a high percentage of people in that area are intolerant to that chemistry.

This invokes the thought that Covid is being blown out of proportion, and the vaccines are just a placebo. Just remember the basics to living.

They eradicated malaria in Sri Lanka,no vaccine required,same with Cyprus 75 years ago.

a reply to: glen200376

Since malaria is transmitted through a vector (mosquitos) it's not really a valid comparison to COVID.

a reply to: glen200376

Common sense knowledge to eradicate natural habitats of viral diseases. In this case stagnant water.

a reply to: Phage

I just meant the quality and care of the trials and research compared to the covid ones, not thediseases themselves.

a reply to: dug88

Still not a valid comparison.

a reply to: Phage
Fair point

a reply to: Destal
Malaria is a parasitic disease which is transmitted via a vector. It is limited in geographic extent. There are other prophylactic measures for malaria available.

COVID is a viral disease which is transmitted directly from human to human. It is not limited in geographic extent. Its impact is global. There are no other prophylactic measures available.

a reply to: Phage

How?

a reply to: Phage

Did the person to which you replied not say

"I just meant the quality and care of the trials and research compared to the covid ones, not thediseases themselves. "

which disqualifies your comment based on the nature of the disease. At least I understand his point.

a reply to: jerich0

Malaria is not an emergency, certainly not in the US.
COVID is.

Even our former president seemed to be vaguely aware of that, thus "operation warp speed."

a reply to: dug88

Thankyou for bringing this good news about combatting Malaria to ATS. I remember reading something about Hydroxychloroquine being useful against Malaria too.

All progress is good.

a reply to: Phage

Glad to know you think the US is the center of the world and the global malaria crisis exists outside your bubble of #s given. I'm sure the millions of people globally affected by this annually will be happy though.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: jerich0

Malaria is not an emergency, certainly not in the US.
COVID is.

Even our former president seemed to be vaguely aware of that, thus "operation warp speed."

So you admit that this vaccine is rushed and not properly tested. I don't care about past tests on mRna vaccines. This one in particular.

very thin line, it appears, you walk. err on the side of being correct, but not so far over that you ever admit to something.

This is obviously great news.

You should also be pleased to know the Covid Vacines went through the same trial process.

a reply to: ScepticScot

I don't seem to recall a years worth of any phase 2 trials or long term plans for a phase 3 trial before the covid vaccine was released on mass to the public under threat of loss of freedom for noncompliance.

originally posted by: dug88
a reply to: ScepticScot

I don't seem to recall a years worth of any phase 2 trials or long term plans for a phase 3 trial before the covid vaccine was released on mass to the public under threat of loss of freedom for noncompliance.

The same trials were done. The massively increased funding meant that many of the stages could be done concurrently rather than consecutively but the trials were completed.

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