Malaria Vaccine

In News: Malaria booster vaccine shows up to 80 per cent efficacy: Lancet study

About the vaccine:

• R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine is licensed to Serum Institute of India.
• In 2021, University of Oxford reported findings – the vaccine demonstrated efficacy of 77% over 12-months of follow-up.
• This vaccine is the first to meet the World Health Organization’s Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap goal of a vaccine with at least 75% efficacy
• Study involved 450 participants aged 5 to 17 months and recently reported an efficacy of over 80%.

About Malaria:

• Mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals
• Caused by single-celled microorganisms of the Plasmodium group and spread exclusively through bites of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. The mosquito bite introduces the parasites from the mosquito’s saliva into a person’s blood.
• Symptoms include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. Symptoms usually begin ten to fifteen days after being bitten by an infected mosquito.
• The disease is widespread in the tropical and subtropical regions that exist in a broad band around the equator.
• Distribution of malaria in India is as follows:

Way forward:

The results hold out hope that the vaccine can be an effective weapon in the fight against malaria, which is one of the biggest killers of children globally.

Source: Indian express