New malaria vaccine could 'have a major public health impact,' trial suggests

University of Oxford scientists have reportedly developed the first malaria vaccine which, in a trial, surpassed a key goal of greater than 75 percent efficacy.

In a trial consisting of 450 children in Burkina Faso between the ages of five and 17 months, this vaccine candidate was shown to be 77 percent effective against malaria, Bloomberg reports. It also showed a "favorable safety profile and was well-tolerated." The study was published in The Lancet, though it has not yet been peer-reviewed, and the vaccine is set to be studied further in larger clinical trials with 4,800 children in four African countries.

But Bloomberg noted it was the first vaccine against malaria to show greater than 75 percent efficacy, the World Health Organization goal for such a vaccine. According to BBC News, the most effective malaria vaccine to this point showed 55 percent efficacy in trials with African children. There were an estimated 409,000 malaria deaths and 229 million cases worldwide in 2019, the World Health Organization says.

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"An effective and safe malaria vaccine would be a hugely significant extra weapon in the armory needed to defeat malaria," Malaria No More U.K.'s Gareth Jenkins said. "Countries freed from the malaria burden will be much better equipped to fight off new disease threats when they inevitably emerge in the future."

Adrian Hill, director of the University of Oxford's Jenner Institute, also told BBC News that the trial suggests this vaccine "has the potential to have a major public health impact."