Bill Gates malaria vaccine flops in huge clinical trail

[Mirzam]

http://therefusers.com/refusers-newsroom/bill-gates-malaria-vaccine-flops-in-huge-clinical-trial-reuters/

From Michael Belkin's blog.

Quote:

In Africa’s largest-ever clinical trial, the vaccine was only 30% effective. But in the dumbed-down world of vaccines, that won’t stop this lemon. Glaxo (the vaccine’s manufacturer) says they won’t give up and the head of Bill Gates’ Vaccine Boondoggle Organization is going for booster shots.

[WildKingdom]

Well, I sure hope they continue to work on a vaccine. Malaria kills almost 700,000 people a year, and 90% of them are children under the age of 5. And those stats are from 2010, and represent an improvement over previous rates due to sanitation and mosquito control measures. Data from WHO.

[prosciencemum]

I agree. It's a massive pity this vaccine does not work as well as they hoped, and I will keep my fingers crossed they can figur won't how to make it more effective soon.

[Minerva23]

The Evolutionary Consequences of Blood-Stage Vaccination on the Rodent Malaria Plasmodium chabaudi

'Vaccination can drive the evolution of pathogens. Most obviously, molecules targeted by vaccine-induced immunity can change. Such evolution makes vaccines less effective. A different possibility is that more virulent pathogens are favored in vaccinated hosts. In that case, vaccination would create pathogens that cause more harm to unvaccinated individuals.'

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001368

I find these findings quite troublesome. And according to this article from last year: Anti-malaria campaign cuts deaths by 38% and apparently they did not use any vaccines.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2011/09/13/malaria-deaths-reduced.html

 

[Alenushka]

This is sad. I hope they keep working on it untill it is effective. Malaria is bad illness. It would be lovely to cut down mortality without having to ruing natural habitats with a pesticides.

Yes, sanitation and nets are good but there is limit of their effectivness and you can't always cover everyone.