New findings in vaccine development announced at international conference.(Third Pan-African Malaria Conference of the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria )

2002 DEC 11 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The largest malaria conference in the world, the Third Pan-African Malaria Conference of the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) recently convened in Tanzania; it was organized by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and brought together more than 900 malaria research and control experts from across Africa and around the world.

Global progress in malaria vaccine development was one of the major themes of the conference. Presentations confirmed that malaria vaccine research and development is advancing rapidly. Leading scientists are discussing key advances and challenges - from the results of clinical trials, to novel vaccine candidates that prompt unprecedented immune responses, to the issues involved in establishing clinical trial sites.

"The crucial difference between the situation today and several years ago is the increase in the number of malaria vaccine clinical trials in Africa with industry sponsorship," said speaker W. Ripley Ballou, MD, of MedImmune, a biotechnology company in Maryland. "The combined efforts of industry, researchers, and public health experts working in Africa are finally paving the way to a successful malaria vaccine."

Besides bringing news of important progress, the conference also called attention to the need for much greater investment in vaccines against one of the world's deadliest diseases. Many malaria vaccine candidates are progressing slowly toward clinical trials because of inadequate funding and lack of industrial partnerships needed to prepare them for testing.

While the effort progresses, malaria kills an estimated 2.7 million people every year. Seventy-five percent of these deaths are of African children under the age of 5. More than 2 billion people worldwide are at risk, with 300-500 million clinical cases occurring annually. Malaria also causes a staggering economic burden, costing sub-Saharan Africa billions of dollars in health care and lost productivity.

"Key players in malaria vaccine development are coming together in Africa, which bears the brunt of the disease," said Regina Rabinovich, MD, director of the Malaria Vaccine Initiative, Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), a conference cosponsor. "The synergy created by this information exchange will help inform the global malaria vaccine development effort. We can report that more is being done today than ever before. However, much more remains to be done."

Highlights from malaria vaccine clinical trials reported on at the conference include: