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More than 260,000 children under age 5 die each year from malaria. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended the widespread use of a malaria vaccine among children in Africa and other areas of high malaria transmission — a breakthrough in the long fight against the deadly disease. Malaria is a parasite-caused disease that's been around for thousands of years and is transmitted primarily via mosquito bites. It kills more than 400,000 people around the world each year, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. More than 260,000 children under age 5 die each year from malaria. The road to an effective malaria...

U.S. researchers reported a breakthrough Thursday in the search for a vaccine for malaria, the mosquito-borne disease that sickens millions worldwide. More than three dozen volunteers received multiple, intravenous doses of a vaccine produced with a weakened form of the disease, scientists from the National Institutes of Health, the Navy, Army and other organizations reported Thursday. Though the results were promising, more extensive field testing will be required, the researchers wrote. Nevertheless, the it marks the first time any vaccine trial has shown 100% success in protecting subjects from the mosquito-borne tropical disease, which sickens more than 200 million a...

SYDNEY: Australian researchers said Tuesday they were closing in on a potential vaccine against malaria, with a study showing their treatment had protected mice against several strains of the disease. Michael Good, from Queensland’s Griffith University, said the vaccine led to naturally existing white blood cells, or T-cells, attacking the potentially deadly malaria parasite which lives in red blood cells. “A single vaccination induced profound immunity to different malaria parasite species,” the study, published Tuesday in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, states. Good said the team’s research was focused on inducing the white blood cells to attack the parasite, whatever...

Enlarge Image Dampened hopes. Ally Olotu (right) with a malaria vaccine trial participant and his mother. New results show that the vaccine's protection wanes over time. Credit: John-Michael Maas/Darby Communications There is more cautionary news for the world's most advanced malaria vaccine. A new study in Kenyan children shows that its protection wanes over time, dropping to near zero after 4 years. The results, published in tomorrow's issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, are another strike against the chances that the vaccine will be widely used in its current form. The vaccine, called RTS,S, is the only...

Enlarge Image Promising jab. A baby receives a dose of the experimental malaria vaccine at a trial site in Kilifi, Kenya. Credit: David Poland/PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative The eagerly awaited results from the world's first large-scale trial of a malaria vaccine are in, and they confirm what other, smaller studies had shown: The vaccine, called RTS,S, offers partial protection, cutting episodes of malaria in babies and toddlers in half. Although not nearly as impressive as most vaccines currently in use, experts say the vaccine could help curtail malaria's massive death toll significantly. RTS,S was developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Biologicals...