New Vaccine Sharply Cuts Malaria Risk

Researchers gave 2,022 children in a rural part of southern Mozambique between the ages of 1 and 4 either three injections of the vaccine one month apart or a different vaccine, and followed the children for about six months.

The vaccine produced some pain and swelling where it was injected, but the relatively few serious side effects were far outweighed by the benefits of the vaccine, the researchers said.

Those who received the vaccine were 29.9 percent less likely to develop malaria. Children who were already infected with the parasite were 45 percent less likely to develop a second infection. And perhaps most important, the vaccine reduced by 58 percent the chance that children would develop serious, life-threatening illness, the researchers reported in a paper being published in the Saturday issue of the Lancet.

"We have very robust, statistically significant findings for both protection against clinical malaria but as well protection against infection, and even more importantly some very impressive protection against severe malaria," said Ripley Ballou of GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, the drug company developing the vaccine. "No previously studied malaria vaccines have ever demonstrated those outcomes. I think we're talking an order of magnitude better vaccine than has ever been tested."

But even if the vaccine continues to prove effective, many obstacles remain, not the least of which would be paying for the vaccine for the millions who need it.

"It will take money. It will take resources," said Regina Rabinovich of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

GlaxoSmithKline's president and general manager, Jean Stephenne, said the vaccine could cost as much as $10 to $20 per dose, but the company left open the possibility that it could be made available at a more affordable price in the developing world.

"We expect that the price of the vaccine . . . will be reasonable and accessible to those who need it most. We intend to work actively with our partners to ensure this," the company said in a statement.