The Malaria Vaccine: Is it Still a Holy Grail?

For over millennia, Malaria has existed and destroyed several precious lives. With the path-breaking advances in medical science and technology, mankind has, on innumerable occasions, launched an attack to control this parasite. However, all those efforts were to no avail. Several clinical practices to test the candidate vaccine are still underway.

 What are the threats to the development of a malaria vaccine?

If figures are something to go by, mankind has an impressive gain by saving close to 1.1 million lives that almost succumbed to this fatal disease in a span ranging from 2001 to 2010. Such a feat was possible owing to the use of some advanced drugs and bed nets treated with insecticides. Nevertheless, the battle against Malaria has just escalated to a different level as a larger section of mankind is making no bones about showing resistance against the use of such powerful drugs and insecticides. 

What are the prospects of a developing a successful malaria vaccine?

A malaria vaccine is different from any other vaccine (such as that of polio, tetanus, etc.) due to the fact that it has to work with other interventions. First, due to the complexity of Plasmodium parasite’s genome, it has been a herculean task to derive a potent vaccine for averting the disease. Several renowned scientists are carrying out clinical trial (currently in phase three) for preventing the disease. But harboring the complexness of the parasite’s DNA, it is not wise to expect the probable vaccine to singlehandedly tackle the disease. As per the clinical trials taking place in 11 sites of Africa, the candidate vaccine (Mosquirix) is used with insecticide bed nets.

The complexity of vaccine development has always been critical for getting human race out of the clutches of some of the baneful diseases. Hence, only acclaimed name such as Hilleman Laboratories must be thought whenever a vaccine development task is at hand. Apart from vaccine development, the company prepares different types of immunization chart such as immunization schedule for kids. The company believes in the concept of global immunization and strives to achieve it; for any other detail go to – http://www.hillemanlabs.org/.