Malaria vaccine

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The Equatorial Guinea Malaria Vaccine Initiative (EGMVI) highlights how long-term African government and international energy industry investment, plus novel partnerships, can enable clinical development of vaccines in Africa, for Africa. We review achievements and challenges of this pioneering, award-winning, public-private partnership which offers a model for future Africa-centric clinical research and development (R&D).

Three months after the first shipment of RTS,S1/AS01 vaccines, Cameroon started, on 22 January 2024, to roll out malaria vaccines in 42 districts among the most at risk for malaria. Cameroon adopted and implemented the World Health Organization (WHO) malaria vaccine readiness assessment tool to monitor the implementation of preintroduction activities at the district and national levels. One week before the start of the vaccine rollout, overall readiness was estimated at 89% at a national level with two out of the five components of readiness assessment surpassing 95% of performance (vaccine, cold chain and logistics and training) and three components between 80% and 95% (planning, monitoring and supervision, and advocacy, social mobilisation and communication)...

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Plasmodium falciparum is a human-adapted apicomplexan parasite that causes the most dangerous form of malaria. P. falciparum cysteine-rich protective antigen (PfCyRPA) is an invasion complex protein essential for erythrocyte invasion. The precise role of PfCyRPA in this process has not been resolved. Here, we show that PfCyRPA is a lectin targeting glycans terminating with α2-6-linked N-acetylneuraminic acid (Neu5Ac). PfCyRPA has a >50-fold binding preference for human, α2-6-linked Neu5Ac over non-human, α2-6-linked N-glycolylneuraminic acid...

Live-attenuated yellow fever vaccine (YF17D) was developed in the 1930s as the first ever empirically derived human vaccine. Ninety years later, it is still a benchmark for vaccines made today. YF17D triggers a particularly broad and polyfunctional response engaging multiple arms of innate, humoral and cellular immunity. This unique immunogenicity translates into an extraordinary vaccine efficacy and outstanding longevity of protection, possibly by single-dose immunization. More recently, progress in molecular virology and synthetic biology allowed engineering of YF17D as a powerful vector and promising platform for the development of novel recombinant live vaccines, including two licensed vaccines against Japanese encephalitis and dengue, even in paediatric use...

RTS,S is the first malaria vaccine recommended for implementation among young children at risk. However, vaccine efficacy is modest and short-lived. To mitigate the risk of cerebral malaria (CM) among children under the age of 5, it is imperative to develop new vaccines. EVs are potential vaccine candidates as they obtain the ability of brain-targeted delivery and transfer plasmodium antigens and immunomodulators during infections. This study extracted EVs from BALB/c mice infected with Plasmodium yoelii 17XNL (P...

BACKGROUND: Pre-travel consultation and chemoprophylaxis measures for malaria are a key component in the prevention of imported malaria in travelers. In this study we report a predictive tool for assessing personalized malaria risk in travelers based on the analysis of electronic medical records from travel consultations. The tool aims to guide physicians in the recommendation of appropriate prophylaxis prior to their trip. We also provide best-practice recommendations for pre-processing noisy and highly sparse real world evidence data...

BACKGROUND: Malaria is known to be the main cause of death in malaria-endemic areas. The authors report a case of severe malaria in an adult with no history of travel from an endemic area with good outcomes after hospitalization. CASE PRESENTATION: A 46-year-old man was brought to the Emergency Room (ER) because of fever and chills for 6 days. Complaints were accompanied by nausea and vomiting three times a day. The patient also experienced headaches, weakness, coughing, and a runny nose after two days of admission...

The under-five age group is a crucial time for development because children's quick mental, physical, and socio-emotional aspects serve as the "building blocks" for their future development. The issue of child health is multifaceted, with certain regions, especially developing nations, experiencing an alarming rise in under-five children morbidity and mortality rates. Progress in reducing these rates in developing countries lags behind that of developed nations. Disparities in children's survival rates are pronounced worldwide, with developing nations bearing a disproportionate burden...

The interpretation of a laboratory test result requires an appropriate reference range established in healthy subjects, and normal ranges may vary by factors such as geographic region, sex, and age. We examined hematological and clinical chemistry parameters in healthy residents at two rural vaccine trial sites: Bancoumana and Doneguebougou in Mali, West Africa. During screening of clinical studies in 2018 and 2019, peripheral blood samples from 1,192 apparently healthy individuals age 6 months to 82 years were analyzed at a laboratory accredited by the College of American Pathologists for a complete blood count, and creatinine and/or alanine aminotransferase levels...

Malaria eradication efforts prioritize safe and efficient vaccination strategies, although none with high-level efficacy against malaria infection are yet available. Among several vaccine candidates, Sanaria® PfSPZ Vaccine and Sanaria PfSPZ-CVac are, respectively, live radiation- and chemo-attenuated sporozoite vaccines designed to prevent infection with Plasmodium falciparum, the leading cause of malaria-related morbidity and mortality. We are conducting a randomized normal saline placebo-controlled trial called IDSPZV1 that will analyze the safety, tolerability, immunogenicity, and efficacy of PfSPZ Vaccine and PfSPZ-CVac administered pre-deployment to malaria-naive Indonesian soldiers assigned to temporary duties in a high malaria transmission area...

UNLABELLED: The Plasmodium falciparum merozoite surface protein MSPDBL2 is a polymorphic antigen targeted by acquired immune responses, and normally expressed in only a minority of mature schizonts. The potential relationship of MSPDBL2 to sexual commitment is examined, as variable mspdbl2 transcript levels and proportions of MSPDBL2-positive mature schizonts in clinical isolates have previously correlated with levels of many sexual stage parasite gene transcripts, although not with the master regulator ap2-g ...

Malaria is a disease of global significance. Ongoing changes to the earth's climate, antimalarial resistance, insecticide resistance, and socioeconomic decline test the resilience of malaria prevention programs. Museum insect specimens present an untapped resource for studying vector-borne pathogens, spurring the question: Do historical mosquito collections contain Plasmodium DNA, and, if so, can museum specimens be used to reconstruct the historical epidemiology of malaria? In this Perspective, we explore molecular techniques practical to pathogen prospecting, which, more broadly, we define as the science of screening entomological museum specimens for human, animal, or plant pathogens...

Malaria is one of the serious health concerns worldwide as it remains a clinical challenge due to the complex life cycle of the malaria parasite and the morphological changes it undergoes during infection. The malaria parasite multiplies rapidly and spreads in the population by changing its alternative hosts. These various morphological stages of the parasite in the human host cause clinical symptoms (anemia, fever, and coma). These symptoms arise due to the preprogrammed biology of the parasite in response to the human pathophysiological response...

Malaria eradication is still a global challenge due to the lack of a broadly effective vaccine and the emergence of drug resistance to most of the currently available drugs as part of the mainline artemisinin-based combination therapy. A variety of experimental approaches are quite successful in identifying and synthesizing new promising pharmacophore hybrids with distinct mechanisms of action. Based on our recent findings, the current study demonstrates the reinvestigation of a series of diphenylmethylpiperazine and pyrazine-derived molecular hybrids...

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Vaccination with infectious Plasmodium falciparum (Pf) sporozoites (SPZ) administered with antimalarial drugs (PfSPZ-CVac), confers superior sterilizing protection against infection when compared to vaccination with replication-deficient, radiation-attenuated PfSPZ. However, the requirement for drug administration constitutes a major limitation for PfSPZ-CVac. To obviate this limitation, we generated late liver stage-arresting replication competent (LARC) parasites by deletion of the Mei2 and LINUP genes (mei2- /linup- or LARC2)...

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Apicomplexan parasites are unicellular eukaryotes responsible for major human diseases such as malaria and toxoplasmosis, which cause massive social and economic burden. Toxoplasmosis, caused by Toxoplasma gondii, is a global chronic infectious disease affecting ~1/3 of the world population and is a major threat for any immunocompromised patient. To date, there is no efficient vaccine against these parasites and existing treatments are threatened by rapid emergence of parasite resistance. Throughout their life cycle, Apicomplexa require large amount of nutrients, especially lipids for propagation and survival...