New hope for Malaria Vaccine

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals caused by the bite of the female Anopheles mosquito if the mosquito itself is infected with a malarial parasite.

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New hope for Malaria Vaccine

Relevance for UPSC Exam: GS Paper 3- Science and Technology- Developments and their Applications and effects in everyday Life

New hope for malaria vaccine: In News

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) recently approved RTS, S/AS01 (Mosquirix) developed by GlaxoSmithKline for immunizing children against malaria was a big milestone after decades of gradual progress.

What is Malaria disease?

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. It is caused by the bite of the female Anopheles mosquito if the mosquito itself is infected with a malarial parasite.

There are five kinds of malarial parasites out of which Plasmodium falciparum (parasite is responsible for 70% of cases in India), and Plasmodium vivax (globally, the commonest ones).

New hope for malaria vaccine: Need to develop vaccine

According to the WHO’s World Malaria Report 2021 –
- Globally, there were an estimated 241 million malaria cases in 2020 in 85 malaria-endemic countries.
- India contributed 1.7% of malaria cases and 1.2% of deaths globally.
- Most of this increase came from countries in the WHO Africa Region, which accounted for 95% of cases.
- Malaria deaths increased by 12% globally in 2020 compared with 2019, the majority of whom are children under the age of five.
Given the parasite’s very complex life cycle that correlates with protective immunity has been difficult.

New hope for malaria vaccine: About the RTS, S/AS01 (Mosquirix) vaccine

It is named RTS because it was engineered using genes (repeat (‘R’) and T-cell) of the protein of the Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite together with a viral surface antigen (‘S’) of the hepatitis B virus (HBsAg).
This protein was then mixed with additional HBsAg to improve purification, hence the extra “S”.
To boost immune responses, all protein-based recombinant vaccines rely heavily on a strong adjuvant (help vaccines work better). RTS, S is formulated with an adjuvant called AS01 developed at GSK.

New hope for malaria vaccine: India’s situation

Though basic malaria research has been robust in India, there is a significant gap in the establishment of safe and scientifically robust control human infection models for diseases such as malaria or influenza.

With a highly successful and devoted vaccine-producing biopharma industry, India should be able to lead the world in vaccine development and production.
To aid scientists in the development of novel vaccines against infectious diseases, long-term continuous funding, and regulatory and logistic processes must be better coordinated.