Global Strategy Aims For Effective Malaria Vaccine By 2025

Global Strategy Aims For Effective Malaria Vaccine By 2025

December 05, 2006

    BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec. 5 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- A
report by the world's leading international health
organizations today calls for joint action to accelerate
the development and licensing of a highly effective malaria
vaccine. 
The Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap, a new global
strategy, is being launched today in Bangkok at the Global
Vaccine Research Forum which is taking place from 3 to 6
December.

    (Logo: 
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040610/CNTH001LOGO )

    "Having a highly protective malaria vaccine and
putting it into widespread use in affected areas would be a
true achievement for public health. It would fulfill an
urgent need," said Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, Director of
the Initiative for Vaccine Research, World Health
Organization (WHO).  "The Roadmap marks the first
concerted global attempt at mapping out a shared plan of
action for making a preventive malaria vaccine
reality."

    The Roadmap is a pathway towards reaching the goal of
developing a malaria vaccine by 2025 that would have a
protective efficacy of more than 80% against clinical
disease and would provide protection for longer than four
years.  An interim landmark would be to develop and license
a first-generation vaccine by 2015 with 50% protective
efficacy against severe disease and death that would last
longer than one year.

    Every year, there are 300-500 million cases of malaria
and the disease kills more than one million people, mainly
African children.  The plan calls for the malaria vaccine
community -- scientists, funding organizations, policy
experts and national and global decision-makers -- to work
together to develop an effective vaccine that prevents
severe disease and death caused by Plasmodium falciparum,
the most deadly form of the malaria parasite. 

    In the WHO South-East Asia Region, which includes
Thailand, nearly 19 million estimated cases of malaria and
an estimated 99 000 deaths occurred in 2005.

    More than 230 experts representing 100 organizations
from 35 countries collaborated to develop and publish the
Roadmap over a two-year period. Leading malaria community
representatives, experts, and funders held a series of
meetings to determine ways to overcome challenges facing
the development of a malaria vaccine. 

    Challenges include: scientific unknowns such as the
lack of full understanding of mechanisms of malaria
infection, disease and immunity, inadequate resources,
limited private-sector involvement, and uncertain
mechanisms for procuring and distributing a successful
vaccine.
The Roadmap puts into motion a strategic plan for aligning
research and for developing and making available a safe,
effective and affordable vaccine to prevent malaria in
children under five years of age in sub-Saharan Africa and
other highly endemic regions.  It presents 11 priorities
within four major areas of work that must be undertaken --
in a more coordinated manner than previously -- by diverse
parties towards the development of a malaria vaccine. They
are:

    -- Research: standardizing procedures to compare immune
responses 
       generated by vaccine candidates, using
state-of-the-art approaches and 
       sharing information via the web to strengthen the
connection between 
       laboratories and clinics.
    -- Vaccine development: including pursuing
multi-antigen, multi-stage, and 
       weakened whole-parasite vaccine approaches.
    -- Key capacities: establishing readily accessible
formulation and scale-
       up development capacity, and building good clinical
practice clinical 
       trial capacity in Africa and other malaria-endemic
areas.
    -- Policy and commercialization: dialoguing with
countries and providing 
       data to facilitate policy decisions; securing
sustainable financing; 
       and developing novel regulatory strategies to
expedite the approval of 
       a safe vaccine.

    "The pace of progress towards a malaria vaccine
could dramatically accelerate if these priority areas are
successfully pursued," said Dr Melinda Moree, Director
of the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative which coordinated the
development of the Roadmap.  "Information sharing and
collaboration needs to be stepped up to enhance learning
across studies and eliminate redundant work. Above all,
continued commitment to this initiative is vital.
Developing an effective malaria vaccine is an enormous
challenge, but it is within reach."
The development of the Roadmap was sponsored by the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. 
These two foundations, as well as others from the
"malaria vaccine funders' group" (see below), are
investing resources into priority Roadmap activities.  They
have recently been joined in this endeavor by the
Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena who had never before
funded malaria vaccine projects.

    Scientists have recently confirmed that it is possible
to develop a malaria vaccine.  Currently, there are more
than 30 potential vaccine candidates under development-far
more than there is capacity or funding to investigate in
clinical trials, especially in endemic countries.

    Additional resources will be needed to support research
on vaccine candidates and to advance promising candidates
through clinical development. New and existing donors are
urged to support priorities identified in the Roadmap.

    Malaria vaccine funders' group

    WHO, PATH MVI, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
and the Wellcome Trust, together with representatives of
the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials
Partnership (EDCTP), the European Malaria Vaccine
Initiative (EMVI), the European Commission (Directorate
General for Research), the United States National Institute
for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID) form
part of a malaria vaccine funders' group, with the WHO
Initiative for Vaccine Research as its focal point.  The
group's participation and support was critical to the
Roadmap process. 

    For further information, please contact: Melinda Henry,
WHO Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals, (
http://www.who.int/immunization ), who will be at the
Global Vaccine Research Forum in Bangkok from 29 November
to 8 December 2006 on mobile: [phone] or e-mail:
[e-mail]. 

    Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap:
http://www.MalariaVaccineRoadmap.net .  

    All WHO Press Releases, Fact Sheets and Features as
well as other information on this subject can be obtained
on Internet on the WHO home page: http://www.who.int .

SOURCE  World Health Organization