Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Burkina Faso Tests Malaria Vaccine

The African Malaria Network Trust (AMANET), recently embarked on a phase IIb clinical trial of GMZ2, a newly developed vaccine against Malaria. (See article)

Malaria is a major health concern for Burkina Faso. On average, each Burkinbe child under age five will fall ill with Malaria twice a year. On April 29th, Burkina Faso's national malaria research center began vaccinating volunteer subjects. This clinical trial is part of a multi-national program funded by the European an Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP). Burkina Faso is the second site in Africa to begin testing the vaccine on human subjects. Clinical testing of the vaccine has been underway in Gabon since November of last year. The next two nations to carry out clinical trials of GMZ2 are Ghana and Uganda.

If effective, vaccinations against malaria could save a significant number of disability-adjusted life years globally. Do you think plasmodium falciparum will mutate too rapidly for the vaccine to be benificial in the long term? After having gained insight from our mock World Health Assembly session on Polio, can you think of any difficulties that might arise if health authorities decide to try to vaccinate all populations at risk for Malaria?

1 comment:

  1. I think, if achieved, a vaccine against malaria could be a great medical advance that may save thousands of lives every year. While I think that it's good the vaccine has reached clinical trials, I'm a little wary as to how successful the vaccine will be; it's certainly far too early to start parading this as a great health achievement. But I do think we need to start looking beyond antibiotics as a treatment for malaria, as evidenced by recent rise of multiple drug resistant strains of TB and other bacterial diseases.

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