Africa to benefit from malaria vaccine

   I wrote about a new drug which might stop malaria but while we await the drug, we can start jubilating because a new malaria vaccine is coming to Africa to save Children in Africa.

The world's first malaria vaccine would soon be approved for use in Africa.

After some scientific research, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has said that the new malaria vaccine is safe and effective.

The target population for the vaccine are kids under the age of 5 in Africa.

Dr Fatoumata Nafo-Traore, executive director of the "Roll Back Malaria Partnership" said The vaccine will not stop malaria, but will add onto the benefits of other prevention measures, this is good as it will assist the children to fight malaria better.

Over 100,000 thousand children die of malaria yearly in Africa and majority of them are under five years.

#fightAgainstMalaria 

New Drug might block Malaria

Scientists have developed a new drug that shows hope for stopping deadly malaria in its track.

The new drug acts as a roadblock for malaria, curing mice of established infection, according to a study. Treatment was not associated with obvious side effects, suggesting that the drug may also be safe and effective in humans.
In 2011, a group of scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the UK discovered that a human protein called basigin was required for all strains of Pf to invade red blood cells, an essential stage of the parasite’s life cycle. Antibodies that block the interaction between basigin and the parasite protein PfRH5 were known to block Pf infection in culture, and the Sanger Institute group has now developed a nontoxic anti-basigin drug (called Ab-1) that cured mice of established blood infection.

The transition of promising new drugs from mice to humans usually requires costly and time-consuming clinical trials, but the path for Ab-1 may be less arduous.

Basigin has also been implicated in the progression of certain cancers and in graft-versus-host disease in transplant patients, and drugs that block the protein have already proven safe and effective in patients and are already in clinical use.
According to the World Health Organization malaria currently infects more than 200 million people worldwide and accounts for more than 500,000 deaths per year.
Malaria has been a problem in Nigeria for centuries.

The disease is caused by infection with the parasite Plasmodium falciparum (Pf), and although the disease can be treated with anti-malarial drugs, the drugs are harsh and resistance often develops.

The study is published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.