Progress Against Malaria and Other Infectious Diseases Among Highlights at Annual Vaccine ...( BALTIMORE April 27 /- Global progress...),Health

BALTIMORE, April 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Global progress toward a malaria vaccine is among the key topics to be presented at the 12th Annual Conference on Vaccine Research (ACVR), sponsored by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) April 27-29, 2009 in Baltimore. The ACVR is the world's largest scientific meeting devoted exclusively to research on vaccines and related technologies for disease prevention and treatment. Scientists will also hear encouraging news about the prospect for wiping out meningitis epidemics across a swath of Africa; use of an adjuvant to expand vaccine coverage in the event of a bird-flu epidemic; and prevention of seasonal influenza among school-age children by holding in-school immunization days from elementary through high school.

Prospects for a Malaria Vaccine

Currently, there is no vaccine against malaria, a disease that kills nearly one million people every year and sickens 300-500 million more. But scientists are cautiously optimistic about the most advanced malaria vaccine candidate, which is scheduled to move into large-scale human trials in seven African countries. Earlier studies have shown the vaccine, known as RTS,S, to be more than 50 percent effective in preventing malarial disease in infants under the age of 17 months.

W. Ripley Ballou, MD, deputy director of vaccines at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is supporting development of a malaria vaccine, said that if results of the larger studies prove consistent with earlier findings, RTS,S will join the existing arsenal of bed nets, anti-malaria drugs and insecticides in the battle against the mosquito-borne malaria parasite. "These are all tools that need to be used together," he said.

The RTS,S vaccine, developed by GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals with support from the Malaria Vaccine Initiative of PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health), is the first of 70 expe
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