Mosquito spreading Malaria.PHOTO|FILE
By Syriacus Buguzi,The Citizen Correspondent
In Summary
- Researchers at IHI Research and Training Centre in Bagamoyo have been working on the new malaria jab for the past decade. Experts say Pf SPZ is being tested here to see if it will offer Africans the same protection it did in US adults.
Dar es Salaam. A new malaria
vaccine produced by a US company is being tested in volunteers at
Tanzanian universities, raising fresh hopes of developing a jab that
will eliminate malaria in the next three to five years, according to
researchers.
“This is a unique vaccine,” scientists at Ifakara
Health Institute (IHI) told journalists in Dar es Salaam yesterday. “It
was earlier shown to be safe…and highly protective in US adults who were
experimentally infected with the malaria parasite.” Researchers at IHI
Research and Training Centre in Bagamoyo have been working on the new
malaria jab for the past decade. Experts say Pf SPZ is being tested here
to see if it will offer Africans the same protection it did in US
adults. “Three university adults in Tanzania have been vaccinated so far
in these initial trials and the vaccine has proved to be safe,” said Dr
Seif Shekhalage, a senior researcher at IHI. “They are set to receive
their second dose on Monday next week.”
The malaria vaccine in question works by mimicking
the effect of mosquito bites and has shown early promise by offering
100 per cent protection to a dozen human volunteers in the United
States. It arrests immature parasites, known as sporozoites, and weakens
them so that they cannot cause illness. The parasites have been
incorporated into a new vaccine, which must be injected into a vein
several times, with each shot about a month apart.
The new development comes barely a week after news
of another vaccine that involved Tanzanian children captured the
attention of local and global media after scientists in US discovered a
protein, PfSEA-1, that would allow the malaria parasite escape from one
infected red blood cell and infect additional blood cells.
But, according to the IHI executive director, Dr
Salim Abdullah, the clinical trials involving university students are
focusing on a wider vision of developing a vaccine that can eliminate
the parasite.
The choice of university students for the latest
clinical trials prompted questions from a section of journalists, who
wanted to know why the rural majority had been excluded from the study,
bearing in mind that they are the most affected population.
But, in a quick rejoinder, Chief Scientific
Officer Stephen Hoffma from Sanaria--the company that is producing the
vaccine--said the selection of the study population and participants
depended on volunteers who would accept the challenge readily and
understand the complexities of the clinical trials
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