Malaria bug an elusive adversary
Lynnette Hoffman; 19/4/08
Thirty years into the worldwide search for a vaccine to fight malaria, the most advanced vaccine candidate to date, known as RTSS, has been found to reduce the chances of malaria infection in children aged 1 to 4 by a mere 35 per cent. It’s better than nothing, but hardly a miracle cure, says professor Alan Cowman of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, which is among the key players in the search for a vaccine to prevent one of the world’s most pervasive diseases. “The parasite has the mechanisms to change itself and make itself invisible — it’s a bit like Harry Potter,” Cowman says. “So making a suitable vaccine has been very complex.” Malaria kills at least 1 million people a year, and infects another 500 million, in mostly sub-Saharan Africa. Every day 3000 children under 5 die as a result.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23556655-23289,00.html