Highly protective malaria vaccine could make travel safer

In an article published in Nature, Sanaria’s PfSPZ-CVac (CQ) vaccine is reported as being safe and protecting 100 per cent of six subjects against a variant malaria parasite three months after their last dose in the Phase 1 trial. This is the first time complete protection against a variant malaria parasite has ever been achieved that long after vaccine administration.

Protection was achieved at a dose that is 20 per cent of the company’s first-generation malaria vaccine dosage.

Tool to protect travellers to Africa

“These results represent extremely important progress, unanticipated by most malaria experts,” said Professor Martin Grobusch, Head of the Center of Tropical Medicine and Travel Medicine, Amsterdam University Medical Centers. “Until recently, malaria vaccine developers sought to achieve high-level protection against non-variant malaria parasites, often only two to three weeks after vaccination, with immunity waning thereafter. The finding of 100-per-cent protection against variant parasites that are so divergent from the vaccine parasites at three months is unprecedented. This vaccine approach should be advanced now as a potential tool to protect travellers to Africa and further developed for the prevention of malaria in African populations.”

“Sanaria’s vaccine development programme is designed to produce safe, cost-effective vaccines that provide high-level protection against malaria parasites that cause more than 400,000 deaths annually, primarily in Africa,” added Stephen Hoffman, Sanaria’s CEO.

The news comes as the World Health Organization warned that Covid-19 disruptions could be a ‘significant threat’ to helping control malaria in Africa.