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July 09, 2003

INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS

“Malaria Vaccine Offers Hope to Africa”

Financial Times (www.ft.com) (07/09/03) P. 11; Firn, David

The Malaria Vaccine Initiative is to kick off Wednesday in Mozambique, with doctors planning to inoculate 2,000 children over an 18-month period with an experimental vaccine against malaria called RTSS, a product developed by GlaxoSmithKline.  A number of vaccines have been shown to increase the body’s defensive responses against malaria, but no product has been able to stop the spread of malaria among people living in areas at risk for the disease.  However, researchers are confident that they are nearing a breakthrough in the fight against the disease, which kills 1 million Africans annually, most of them under the age of five years; RTSS provided a short-term immune response in the majority of participants in a small study in Gambia.  Naturally, doctors would like to eradicate the disease, but experts say that even a partial benefit to children would be a success, as decreasing the number of children infected with malaria could significantly alter transmission rates.