Mali study shows efficacy of new malaria vaccine

Privately-held malaria vaccine specialist Sanaria has described positive results from a study into its PfSPZ Vaccine against natural infections of plasmodium falciparum, the leading cause of malaria deaths.

The results show that while 93% of the placebo group had one or more infections, only 66% of the vaccinated subjects acquired an infection. The time to infection was also delayed in the test group. There were no differences in adverse events between the vaccinated group and the placebo group.

The Mali-based study was a collaboration between researchers at the University of Science, Techniques and Technologies in Bamako and the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, USA.