Hope rises as new malaria vaccine lands in 2015
Category: Health & Physical Fitness
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Malaria,
a disease that kills no fewer than 300, 000 Nigerian children under the
age five , annually may soon become preventable in the country.
Reason: medical researchers say a new and more effective vaccine is under way and it will arrive Nigeria in 2015.
One of the scientist working on the vaccine research, Dr. Sophie Biernaux, stated this on Monday.
According to her, the vaccine, RTS,S, has been submitted to the European Medicines Regulatory Agency for approval.
The research is being championed by
GlaxoSmithKline with a US$200m grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative.
Biernaux said the data collated from the
phase III vaccine trial programme was conducted at 13 African research
centres in eight African countries and that the exercise involved 16,000
infants and young children.
She named Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Gabon,
Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania as some of the countries
used for the research.
According to her, the vaccine triggers
the body’s immune system, defending it against the Plasmodium falciparum
malaria parasite.
She stated, “The vaccine is designed to
prevent the parasite from infecting, maturing and multiplying in the
liver, after which time the parasite would re-enter the bloodstream and
infect red blood cells, leading to disease symptoms. In the phase III
efficacy trial, RTS,S was administered in three doses, one month apart
and its outcome was outstanding.
Biernaux stated that EMA assessment done
in collaboration with the World Health Organisation would ensure the
use of the vaccine for malaria prevention in non-member European Union
countries.
She stated, “The vaccine RTS,S is
intended exclusively for use against the Plasmodium falciparum malaria
parasite, which is most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. Around 90 per
cent of estimated deaths from malaria occur in SSA, and 77 per cent of
these are in children under the age of five.
“The EMA submission is the first step in
the regulatory process toward making the RTS,S available as an addition
to existing tools currently recommended for malaria prevention. To-date
there is no licensed vaccine available for the prevention of malaria.
This is a key moment in our 30-year journey to develop RTS,S and brings
us a step closer to making available the world’s first vaccine that can
help protect children in Africa from malaria.”
Should the vaccine produced by
GlaxoSmithKline be approved by the EMA, the WHO said, it would be
changing malaria treatment guidelines for malaria by 2015 such that it
would be included in the national immunisation schedules of young
children and babies in Africa.
The Managing Director, GSK Nigeria, Dr.
Lekan Asuni, stated that the approval by the European body was needed
for the National Agency for Food Drugs Administration and Control to
accept the use of the vaccine in Nigeria.
Asuni said the result of the
clinical trial conducted by the pharmaceutical company in collaboration
with research centre in Nigeria had been submitted for the WHO/EMA approval.
Source: Punch
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