Scientists test new malaria vaccine

British scientists on Monday began a new round of field trials in The Gambia to gauge the effectiveness of a vaccine against malaria. "We are not close to a final vaccine yet, although we have got to a stage where we have good evidence to suggest that this will be an effective vaccine against malaria," Trials Coordinator Dr. Vasee Moorthy told IRIN from the Gambian town of Farafenni, where the new tests are being conducted. The team of scientists from Oxford University and the British Medical Research Council did a first round of clinical trials in The Gambia in September 2000. They also conducted tests on volunteers in the United Kingdom. Moorthy said these volunteers, who were deliberately infected with malaria, showed positive results after the vaccine was tried on them. "We hope to see the same in The Gambia and that the vaccine will be effective in preventing malaria," he said. By the end of September, some 360 healthy adults in The Gambia's mosquito-infested North Bank Division, which includes Farafenni, will be injected with the vaccine and then observed for any signs of malaria. Moorthy said the vaccine was the first to target the disease once it had entered the body cells. Previous malaria vaccines had only been able to attack the parasite before it entered the cells, he said. He was hopeful the new vaccine would be effective in preventing malaria. "Rather than using the malaria parasite itself," he explained, "we are using a purified preparation based on fragments of the malaria parasite's own DNA." It is estimated that the disease kills up to a million people in Africa each year, two-thirds of them children. It also affects other parts of the developing world, but Moorthy believes the Northern Hemisphere may not be spared for long. "If an effective vaccine is not developed soon," he said, "cases of malaria and deaths from this disease will continue to rise over the next few years and will spread to parts of Europe and America from which it had been eradicated." There has been evidence that climate change, social instability and increased resistance to pesticides and treatment are hampering the battle against malaria.