New hope for effective vaccines against malaria have been revealed by a major UK study.
The discoveries come amid concern about the spread of drug-resistant malaria in Asian countries.
The latest findings come from a study of children with natural resistance to the disease.
Researchers say this has led to a number of possible vaccine targets.
After identifying the children with natural protection against the disease, the researchers set out to identify the antibodies in the immune system that were responsible.
From there they identified vulnerable proteins in the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum.
The findings are reported in Science Translational Medicine.
The research involved the Kenya Medical Research Institute together with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK.
Researcher Dr Faith Osier, from Kenya, said: “Resistance to malaria drugs is an increasing problem so vaccines are desperately needed to battle the Plasmodium falciparum parasite before it has a chance to make people sick.
“This study presents us with a large number of new vaccine candidates that offer real hope for the future.”
Researcher Dr Julian Rayner, from the Sanger Institute, said: “Trials for vaccines in the past have focussed on one target at a time and have had limited success; with this approach, we can systematically test larger numbers of targets and identify targets that might work in combination.”
* A second Wellcome Trust backed study last night warned of drug-resistant disease spreading to “critical” border regions in south-east Asia, linking Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and eastern Myanmar.
So far there is no sign of drug-resistant malaria parasites in Africa, according to the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
But researcher Professor Nicholas White, from Oxford University, UK, warned: “It may still be possible to prevent the spread of artemisinin resistant malaria parasites across Asia and then to Africa by eliminating them, but that window of opportunity is closing fast.
“Conventional malaria control approaches won’t be enough – we will need to take more radical action and make this a global public health priority, without delay.”
Osier, F et al. (2014) New antigens for a multicomponent blood-stage malaria vaccine. Science Translational Medicine 30 July 2014; doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3008705
Elizabeth A Ashley et al. Spread of Artemisinin Resistance in Plasmodium falciparum Malaria. NEJM 31 July 2014; 371:411-23. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1314981
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