Science & technology | Parasites prevented

A new malaria vaccine shows promising results

If further tests remain successful, it could be deployed in the field as soon as 2023

This illustration picture taken on August 22, 2019 shows a mosquito seen through a microscope in the entomology laboratory at the National Center for research and training on malaria (CNRFP), in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou. - The primary cause of consultation, malaria is a real public health problem in Burkina Faso, that affects mostly young children, and has been reduced by prevention campaigns carried out by the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) and partly funded by the Global Fund. Introduced in Burkina Faso in 2014, initially in seven districts in high-prevalence areas, seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) was expanded in subsequent years to cover almost all of the country's 70 districts. An evaluation of the SMC program in Burkina Faso reveals that the number of malaria infections in children under five had been halved in the Kaya health district (north) over a four-year period. (Photo by Olympia DE MAISMONT / AFP) (Photo by OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT/AFP via Getty Images)

Most diseases that used to kill children in large numbers have succumbed to vaccines. Malaria is an exception. In 2020 it killed 640,000 people, mostly African children under five years old. Scientists have not ignored the scourge: the first candidate vaccine trial took place in the 1940s; more than a hundred jabs have been in development since.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Parasites prevented”

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