Malaria Vaccine Found to Be Less Effective On Infants

According to a new study, malaria vaccine was found to have as low as a 30 percent effect on infants and is said to work better in older children.

The vaccine has more impact in preventing the disease in older children than infants. Three doses of vaccine which is RTS, S, was given to children along with regular childhood vaccines, which only reduced the risk of malaria by 31 percent in more than 6,000 infants aged between six to 12 weeks old, according to the results published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

While the results published in October 2011 showed same dosage of the vaccine was profoundly reducing half the risk of malaria among children between five to 17 months of age.

This vaccine has been in development for more than 20 years under Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations' funding, but the researchers say they need more data before concluding on how to organize the vaccine. "The efficacy came back lower than we had hoped, but developing a vaccine against a parasite is a very hard thing to do. The trial is continuing and we look forward to getting more data to determine whether and how to deploy this vaccine." Bill Gates said in a statement.

Researchers have also noted a few possibilities due to which the vaccine did not work on infants. The immune systems of infants are not well developed to cope with the vaccine whereas in older children it has worked more effectively. Another reason could be that the antibodies that have been transferred from their mothers might obstruct with the vaccine.

"This is an important scientific milestone and needs more study," said Mr. Gates.

"If it turns out to have a clear 30% efficacy, it is probably not worth it to implement this in Africa on a large scale," said Genton Blaise, a malaria expert at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, who is also a part of WHO advisory board.

After having such depressing and demotivating results after such a long research in developing a vaccine for the deadly disease, the Britain's top drug-maker and GSK Chief Executive Andrew Witty said it could be vital to find a vaccine for malaria. "We've been at this for 30 years, and we're certainly not going to give up now," he told reporters on a conference call.