TheCable

Scientists from the University of Oxford say a new vaccine called R21/Matrix is 80 percent effective in preventing malaria.

This shows an improvement from the 77 percent efficacy recorded in the phase IId trials of the vaccine in 2021.

Malaria remains one of the leading causes of child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, with over 250,000 deaths reported yearly.

The only vaccine currently approved for malaria is the RTS, S/AS01 (RTS,S) vaccine endorsed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) which is 29 percent effective in preventing severe malaria.

The Oxford researchers and their partners, who published the findings in the Lancet Infectious Diseases, said they gave three doses of the vaccine to 409 children aged five to 17 months in Burkina Faso. They also gave a booster after 12 months.

They said the findings show that vaccine efficacy was higher in the group that received a higher dose of the vaccine.

“A Cox regression model comparing group 1, who received R21 with 25 μg Matrix-M, with the control group, resulted in an unadjusted vaccine efficacy of 71% (95% CI 60–78; p<0·0001). When comparing group 2, who received R21 with 50 μg Matrix-M, with the control group, the unadjusted vaccine efficacy was 80% (95% CI 72–85; p<0·0001;),” the researchers wrote.

Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at the university, said these data are the best yet in the field with any malaria vaccine.

He added that the vaccine could be made with “a few dollars” and “we really could be looking at a very substantial reduction in that horrendous burden of malaria”.

“We hope that this will be deployed and available and saving lives, certainly by the end of next year,” he said.

Full data from the research will be submitted to the WHO later this month.