LONDON – A cheap malaria vaccine that can be produced on a massive scale has been recommended for use by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The vaccine has been developed by the University of Oxford and is only the second malaria vaccine to be developed.
Malaria kills mostly babies and infants, and has been one of the biggest scourges on humanity.
There are already agreements in place to manufacture more than 100 million doses a year.
It has taken more than a century of scientific effort to develop effective vaccines against malaria.
The disease is caused by a complex parasite, which is spread by the bite of blood-sucking mosquitoes. It is far more sophisticated than a virus as it hides from our immune system by constantly shape-shifting inside the human body.
That makes it hard to build up immunity naturally through catching malaria, and difficult to develop a vaccine against it.
It is almost two years to the day since the first vaccine – called RTS,S and developed by GSK – was backed by the WHO. (BBC)
