London, Beritasatu.com- The researchers behind the new malaria vaccine have reported up to 77% effectiveness in fighting the disease. As reported RT, Saturday (24/4/2021), malaria has claimed more than 400,000 lives a year.
The investigators’ findings made R21 / Matrix-M the first inoculation to meet the World Health Organization’s (WHO) efficacy targets. The results of the second phase trial of the vaccine are published in The Lancet earlier this week.
The R21 / Matrix-M was developed by the University of Oxford in collaboration with the biotech company Novavax,
Researchers claim that immunization has been shown to be effective in a trial involving 450 children aged between five and 17 months from Burkina Faso.
Subjects were divided into three groups: the first group received vaccines with high-dose adjuvants, namely substances that are used to increase the effectiveness of the vaccine; the second group received the same vaccine as the low-dose adjuvant, and the control group received rabies injection.
Among those inoculated with the low dose option, about 29% still had malaria. While about 26% who received the high dose injection were also infected, that means the vaccines have shown 71% and 74% effectiveness in preventing highly infectious diseases, respectively.
After completing the second phase of the trial, the researchers hope to test the vaccine in a larger cohort of 4,500 children, ranging from five months to three years old and from Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali and Tanzania.
While the length requirement before it can be used in the general population, the R21 / Matrix-M has been the first on record to achieve the efficacy goal set by the World Health Organization (WHO) of 75%.
If given the green light for future rollout, the vaccine will show a major improvement in the other vaccine candidates, the most successful with about 56% effectiveness in trials.
The world’s pharmaceutical giants have been under constant pressure to develop a “bulletproof” Covid-19 vaccine since the start of the pandemic. About 200 vaccine candidates were being developed as of December last year.
Source: BeritaSatu.com
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