A malaria vaccine has achieved 75% efficacy, offering hope of using vaccination to eliminate the disease, it was announced today.
Developers say the vaccine R21/Matrix-M has potential for large scale manufacturing and low cost supply.
The vaccine has been tested on 450 children in Nanoro, Burkina Faso, according to a study to be reported in The Lancet.
A phase III study will involve 4,800 infants in four African countries, developers say.
Researcher Professor Adrian Hill, of Oxford University, UK, said: “These new results support our high expectations for the potential of this vaccine, which we believe is the first to reach the World Health Organisation’s goal of a vaccine for malaria with at least 75% efficacy.
“With the commitment by our commercial partner, the Serum Institute of India, to manufacture at least 200 million doses annually in the coming years, the vaccine has the potential to have major public health impact if licensure is achieved.”
Professor Halidou Tinto, regional director of Burkina Faso’s Institut de Recherche en Sciences de la Santé, said: “These are very exciting results showing unprecedented efficacy levels from a vaccine that has been well tolerated in our trial programme. We look forward to the upcoming phase III trial to demonstrate large-scale safety and efficacy data for a vaccine that is greatly needed in this region.”
Gareth Jenkins, from Malaria No More UK, said: “An effective and safe malaria vaccine would be a hugely significant extra weapon in the armoury needed to defeat malaria, which still kills over 270,000 children every year. For decades, British scientists have been at the forefront of developing new ways to detect, diagnose, test and treat malaria, and we must continue to back them.
“A world without malaria is a world safer both for the children who would otherwise be killed by this disease, and for us here at home. Countries freed from the malaria burden will be much better equipped to fight off new disease threats when they inevitably emerge in the future.”
Lancet pre-press 23 April 2021
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