New malaria vaccine works well in infants, offers adults layered protection | Hacker News Reader

New malaria vaccine works well in infants, offers adults layered protection

arstechnica.com

12 pointspseudolus5 comments

My first question was, how urgent is this particular treatment? The true prevalence of malaria in young infants is not well characterized.

Infants are thought to be protected against malaria during the first 6 months of life largely due to the transfer of maternal antibodies(1) and the presence of fetal hemoglobin.(2)

That said, pretty cool development.

(1)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6383091

(2)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/337159

The introductory paragraph of the submitted article certainly makes it look urgent:

"[Malaria] [...] was responsible for over 600,000 deaths in 2022, according to the World Health Organization. [...] 95 percent of malaria cases and deaths are reported in Africa alone, and 80 percent of the people who die in various African countries due to malaria are children under 5."

This new vaccine seems to be targeting a different stage of development of malaria and seems to be compatible with augmenting the existing RTS,S vaccine for increased protection if I read that correctly.

Edit: calculating the fraction of these numbers for children makes three quarters of all malaria deaths children. This sounds surprising and excessive but is sadly corroborated by the 2022 World Malaria Report [0] which states: "The percentage of total malaria deaths in children aged under 5 years reduced from 87% in 2000 to 76% in 2015. Since then there has been no change." [1].

[0] https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240064898

[1] p.22 of the report

>80 percent of the people who die in various African countries due to malaria are children under 5.

“Under 5” is not really an infant though.

Newborn infants in endemic areas are markedly resistant to malaria. Consequently, severe disease is rare during the first few months of life, and infections tend to be low density and relatively asymptomatic during this period.(1)

Studies have shown the incidence of malaria and parasitaemia in infants is very low.

Study 1: The malaria incidence density was 1.1/1000 person-months in infants under 3mo (2).

Study 2: The annual number of malaria cases ranged from 12 to 120 cases in infants <5kg per sub-Saharan country studied. The majority of patients recovered from their illness following treatment.(3)

Now that’s not nothing of course, and infants deserve special attention. Still malaria research resources are limited and ought to be appropriately prioritized to the highest risk populations

(1)https://www.cell.com/trends/parasitology/pdf/S1471-4922(03)0...

(2)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15950165/

(3)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23243081/

It also seems to work well on older children, so I don't see your point exactly?

>how urgent is this particular treatment?

Consider that recent headlines indicate Malaria is occuring in Maryland: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/08/18/maryla...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com