2024-02-01 23:30:04
A malaria vaccine developed by Oxford University and the Serum Institute of India prevented around three-quarters of symptomatic malaria cases in young children in the first year after vaccination, results of a large study showed on Thursday.
The vaccine, already approved by regulators in three West African countries (link) and the World Health Organization (link), is the second to come to market this year.
The first vaccine was launched in Cameroon (link) earlier this month and was developed by drugmaker GSK.
Both vaccines have the potential to make a huge difference in the fight against an ancient mosquito-borne disease that still kills more than half a million people, mostly young children, in sub-Saharan Africa each year.
“We’ve been waiting for this for decades,” Mary Hamel, head of the WHO’s malaria vaccines division, said in an interview. She said it was important to have two safe and effective malaria vaccines to meet demand.
The results of the final phase of the trial for the Oxford and Serum vaccine, known as R21, were published on Thursday in the medical journal The Lancet (link).
In a study of 4,800 children in four African countries, the vaccine prevented 75 percent of malaria cases in children between the ages of five and 36 months in areas where the first three doses were administered before the peak malaria season. In areas where malaria is transmitted year-round, 68 percent of cases were prevented.
According to the researchers, effectiveness was maintained with a booster a year later, although protection appears to decrease over time. The study is not yet completed.
“That’s something we can add,” said Brian Greenwood, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who has been working on vaccines for decades.
“Now we need to learn how best to use these vaccines,” he added, pointing to the possible need for regular booster vaccinations and combining the shots with preventative medicines and tools such as mosquito nets.
He and other experts said that comparing the two vaccines directly is difficult because of the many variables in the studies. These included, among other things, the age of the vaccinated children and the duration of the study, the extent of preventive medication administered alongside the vaccinations and the extent of malaria transmission in a particular area.
Despite claims that R21 offers unique protection (link),
When the vaccines are compared under the same conditions, their performance is similar, experts said – a conclusion echoed by the WHO.
The main difference is that the new R21 vaccine is cheaper and more readily available, at about $3 per dose. Only 18 million doses of the GSK vaccine are available by 2026, while Serum has already produced 25 million doses of the R21 vaccine for this year, Chief Executive Adar Poonawalla told Reuters ahead of the results. The vaccine also contains an adjuvant, an immune-boosting ingredient made by Novavax.
“There is no capacity issue and we will provide more information in three to four months as more countries express their demand,” he said in an emailed statement.
Alassane Dicko, who led the R21 trial in Mali, said the vaccines should be used as soon as possible.
“What we need to do now is get the vaccines to the children,” he said.
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