Scientific panel finds long-lasting vaccine for Africa promising.

2003 APR 2 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP), a partnership between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Seattle-based Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), has announced a major milestone forward in the fight against the deadly meningitis A epidemics that have plagued sub-Saharan Africa for more than 100 years.

A panel of scientific experts has determined that MVP's candidate meningitis A conjugate vaccine has a strong chance of providing long-lasting immunity against meningitis to people in Africa.

The scientists, assembled by MVP (www.meningvax.org) and the U.K.-based National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), reached their conclusion after reviewing the scientific data on the vaccine presented by MVP. MVP has forged agreements with three partnering companies to develop and test the vaccine and ensure that it is affordable to African nations by keeping its price at well under US$1.00 per dose.

"Clinical trials for the new vaccine could start as early as 2004, and the new vaccine could be ready for wide use in sub-Saharan Africa within the next four to five years," said MVP Director Dr. F. MarcLaForce. "Our goal is to eliminate epidemic meningitis as a public health problem in sub-Saharan Africa, thereby alleviating the social, human, and economic disasters these epidemics cause."

Although current polysaccharide vaccines are effective in controlling meningitis epidemics in Africa, they do not provide long-lasting protection. They have only limited efficacy in very young children, and they do not confer "herd immunity," a reduction in the transmission of the disease in the population at risk. The meningococcal group A conjugate vaccine developed by the Meningitis Vaccine Project would offer longer-term protection while at the same time conferring herd immunity.

The conjugation technology is well-known and has been used to develop vaccines for Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib meningitis). The first group C meningococcal vaccine was introduced in the United Kingdom in 1999. Since then, two additional group C meningococcal vaccines have been introduced in the U.K. and in Ireland and recent reports indicate that the vaccines are safe and highly effective in reducing group C meningitis in both countries.

Meningitis is one of the world's most dreaded infectious diseases. Even with antibiotic treatment, at least 10% of patients die, with another 10-20% left with permanent problems, such as mental retardation, deafness, or epilepsy.