A new approach to protecting young African children from malaria could reduce deaths and illness from the disease by 70 per cent, a study suggests.
Giving them vaccines before the worst season in addition to preventative drugs produced “very striking” results, London researchers say.
The trial followed 6 000 children aged under 17 months in Burkina Faso and Mali.
Most of the 400 000 deaths from malaria each year are in the under-fives.
And the mosquito-borne disease is still a major health issue in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
Booster dose
This trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, focused on giving very young children a vaccine already in use and anti-malarial drugs at the time of year they are most vulnerable – often the rainy season (from June in Burkina Faso), when mosquitoes multiply.
“It worked better than we thought would be the case,” said Prof Brian Greenwood, a member of the research team, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), which led the trial.
“Hospital admissions were less, deaths were less in both countries – and we really didn’t expect to see that.”
Over three years, the trial found three doses of the vaccine and drugs before the worst malaria season, followed by a booster dose before subsequent rainy seasons, controlled infections much better than vaccines or drugs alone – and, the researchers said, could save millions of young lives in the African Sahel.
Among the children who received vaccine doses and drugs, there were:
- 624 cases of malaria
- 11 children treated in hospital with severe malaria
- three deaths from malaria
Among the same number of children who received preventative drugs alone – the current approach in those countries – there were:
- 1,661 malaria cases
- 37 admissions to hospital
- 11 deaths from malaria
- Scientists say the combined effects of the vaccine and drugs in the trial appear to be surprisingly powerful.
- The vaccine – called RTS,S and created by GlaxoSmithKline more than 20 years ago – kills parasites that multiply very quickly in the liver, while anti-malarial drugs target parasites in the body’s red blood cells.
(BBC)
