New vaccine success for Oxford is truly remarkable | Kenan Malik

Malaria has still not been eradicated in the poorest countries, but that could be about to change

Another vaccine from Oxford's Jenner Institute and one that may have a greater impact than that against Covid-19. Results from trials of its malaria vaccine, R21, show it to be 77% effective. If replicated in larger scale trials, it would be a remarkable breakthrough. Malaria kills more than 400,000 people a year, almost all in sub-Saharan Africa, and mainly children. Until now, the only approved anti-malarial vaccine, Mosquirix, has had a low level of efficacy - among young children it reduced cases by 39%; in infants, says the World Health Organization, it did not work sufficiently well to justify its further use".

This is what makes the new vaccine so exciting, raising the possibility of reducing deaths to the tens of thousands". The reason for slow progress in eradicating malaria is partly technical. The parasite that causes the disease, of which there are five kinds, passes through several life stages, making it more difficult to target with a vaccine.

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