Malaria Vaccine Candidate Possible as Early as 2015

Malaria a significant public health burden, claiming 660,000 lives a year - mostly children in sub-Saharan Africa

Malaria kills approximately 660,000 people per year in Kenya.

Around the world, it causes illness in hundreds of millions more, most of them children under the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa.

Malaria Endemic Areas    Source: CDC

Results from a large-scale Phase III trial, presented today in Durban, show that the most clinically advanced malaria vaccine candidate, RTS,S, continued to protect young children and infants from clinical malaria up to 18 months after vaccination.

RTS,S is a scientific name given to this malaria vaccine candidate and represents the composition of this vaccine candidate and aims to trigger the immune system to defend against the Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite when it first enters the human host’s bloodstream and/or when the parasite infects liver cells. It 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.

Based on these data, GSK now intends to submit, in 2014, a regulatory application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The World Health Organization (WHO) has indicated that a policy recommendation for the RTS,S malaria vaccine candidate is possible as early as 2015 if it is granted a positive scientific opinion by EMA.