For many, mosquitos are just a nuisance. These insects cause itching. Vacationers have complained about these pests and how it has marred their skin for long periods of time. While they may seem like nothing more than an inconvenience, mosquitos have been the cause for death in the years past. In fact, they are actually considered to be one of the deadliest animals on the planet. Not only do their bites itch, bit many have suffered from diseases such as yellow fever, dengue, encephalitis, and malaria.
One mosquito bite can kill. There are those that have sought medical treatment immediately and came out of the experience unscathed. However, mosquito bites have actually killed 400,000 people in 2019. This staggering amount may come as a shock to most, but it’s a reality that many countries are facing. So rampant is this issue that researchers and health experts have looked for ways to lower the figures and find a way to help victims.
Now, clinical trials have been made and the R21 malaria vaccine in Burkina Faso looks like this may be the promising problem to mosquito-borne diseases. This could be an effective tool because it is able to trigger the body’s immune system to attack the parasite. The trial has gone through two phases and in the second phase, it has shown to be 77 percent effective.
Malaria is treatable, but it can also be deadly if left to fester inside the body. The disease ravages and replicates itself through the system in seven different stages. The culprit behind this is a parasite known as Plasmodium falciparum. Researchers know that this isn’t a particularly good candidate for vaccination because its nature is to constantly evolve throughout its life cycle. Hence, mosquito nets are still the most effective measure when it comes to fighting malaria. For better perspective and to make it clearer to understand, the parasite is made from 5,000 genes. The coronavirus, on the other hand, while has impacted all our lives, contains just 16 genes.
In the 1980s, the famous pharmaceutical company called GlaxoSmithKline attempted to use vaccines to tackle the malaria epidemic. Their injections targeted the initial stage of the Plasmodium life cycle which called a sporozoite. Three years later, as per National Geographic, researchers discovered that sporozoites are actually covered in proteins. These said proteins provoke a strong immune system response. And while the vaccine does work, the evolution to their next life cycle occurs too quickly, even before natural immunity takes place, recognizes, and terminates the sporozoites.
The whole idea and goal for the new vaccine was to create a carrier for the body. This would be a kind of sporozoite protein-punching bag. Hence, when the real thing arrives and heads straight for the immune system, the body would be able to react quickly enough to eradicate the disease before it spreads further to the liver.
The new answer to malaria is marketed commercially as Mosquirix. In reality, this is the single-most tested vaccine candidate for malaria. It has been researched for a year, but after twelve months of studying and analyzing, its effectiveness still falls short to sleeping under mosquito nets.
Halidou Tinto, an epidemiologist and expert in Malaria, works near the Burkina Faso capital of Ouagadougou. He has helped to organize a trial with 450 children between ages 5 to 17 years old with another drug. This new study for the R21 vaccine, makes use of the same method as Mosquirix. However, he says that his vaccine is manufactured better. Before, researchers only used one in five proteins that were found coated in the sporozoite protein. The R21, on the other hand, made that five in five proteins, which he believes to be more effective.
At its best, R21 was able to reduce clinical malaria incidence by 77 percent, this is 2 percent more than the 75 percent target set out by the WHO in 2013 as part of their international attempt to push the global malaria problem more into the pharmacology mainstream market. There was no difference in malaria incidence at a 6 or a 12-month follow-up. This is, for them, a significant improvement over the old GSK vaccine.
The authors of the paper published after then noted that the vaccine doses were administered before the annual rainy season arrived because this, as history shows, when malaria cases spike. They state that it would be worth comparing results from trials carried out during different seasons of the year. In fact, Tinto spoke to National Geographic about this and said, “We are enthusiastic, but we still need phase three trials to confirm the efficacy and the safety of the vaccine before we move on.”
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