Results from two new studies on the efficacy of the world's most clinically advanced malaria vaccine candidate in infants and young children in Africa was announced at a telephone press briefing on December 8, 2008.

The first study, conducted in Tanzania with infants, examines the efficacy of the RTS,S/AS malaria vaccine candidate when co-administered with other childhood vaccines such as polio, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, and Haemophilus influenzae type b; the malaria vaccine was given to infants at eight, 12, and 16 weeks of age. The second study, conducted in Kenya and Tanzania, examines the efficacy of the RTS,S malaria vaccine on children 5 to 17 months old.

The data was published online in The New England Journal of Medicine and will be presented at the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.

RTS,S/AS - created by GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals - is the leading clinical candidate in a global effort led by the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) to develop a malaria vaccine. An earlier phase II trial, published in The Lancet in 2007, demonstrated "proof of concept" that RTS,S/AS could prevent malaria infection in infants. Half of the world's population is at risk of malaria, and an estimated 247 million cases led to nearly 881,000 deaths in 2006.

WHO: Speakers:
Christian Loucq, MD, Director, PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, Bethesda, MD, USA
Salim Abdulla, MD, PhD, Leader, Bagamoyo Branch, Ifakara Health Institute, Bagamoyo, Tanzania
Ally Olutu, MD, Research Clinician, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Collaborative Research Centre, Kilifi, Kenya
Joe Cohen, PhD, Vice President of R&D for Vaccines for Emerging Diseases & HIV, GSK Biologicals, Rixensart, Belgium
W. Ripley Ballou, MD, Deputy Director for Vaccines, Infectious Diseases Development, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA, USA

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Source:

Preeti Singh
PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative

Katie Moore
Gwynne Oosterbaan
GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals