Slashdot Mirror
Effective Vaccine For Malaria
PeterM from Berkeley writes "According to
this news story, researchers may have finally developed a vaccine effective against malaria. Malaria kills 1 million people per year and sickens about 300 million, and is one of the big reasons the 3rd world is a mess. And as a bonus, it may be that the same vaccine may also protect against smallpox."
"Excuse my ignorance, yet I do not know much about malaria. Why is it such a problem in the third world? I know it has something to do with mosquitoes... yet it is not a problem in the western world."
I saw a show the other day about mosquitoes in Florida. Florida spends 2-3 billion dollars from my recollection to combat mosquitoes. I doubt most 3rd worlds countries can afford this much.
It has everything to do with mosquitos. The disease (which kills something on the order of 5,000 people every single day) is caused by a plasmodium spread by the anopheles mosquito. Endemic malaria is therefore bounded by the home range of the mosquitos that carry it.
It doesn't help that the areas of the world where the disease is endemic tend to be places where there is no history of a robust public health infrastructure (Brazil, West Africa, Southeast Asia). There were widespread spraying programs throughout the '60s that cut the rate of infection dramatically, but there's no political will -- nor, to be fair, sufficient resources -- to keep the program going. Uganda (or possibly Kenya, I forget) has been very successful with the simplest of malaria control measures: insecticide-treated mosquito nets, which cut infection rates dramatically.
Malaria is so brutal because it not only kills, but also debilitates an additional 500,000,000 people a year, who can't do anything -- can't work, can't care for children or sick family, anything. It's not for nothing that malaria is increasingly being viewed as an issue not just of public health, but also of economic development.
A fair argument could even be made that malaria (in addition to schistosomiasis and trypanosomiasis) basically prevented the formation of cities beyond a certain population density. Check out William MacNeill's Plagues And Peoples for an excellent treatment of the impact of disease on human cultural development.
'jfb
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
Also, calling anything based on the vaccinia virus "safe" in such a blanket fashion is vast overkill. Unlike most vaccines, vaccinia-based ones are live virus and cause severe complications if they get into the bloodstream--rather like the difference between cutaneous anthrax and pulmonary anthrax. Check out the CDC for just how nasty vaccinia can get if it escapes the vaccination site.
MVA is also being used in trials in Africa in an effort to boost the immune response to AIDS.
The MVA (smallpox) vaccine is much safer, although less effective against smallpox. But its main purpose in this case is to boost the immune system, especially in fighting malaria. Sounds promising, especially given the low cost and safety.
Sounded high to me too but a quick Google turns up the following:
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"every year malaria kills more than two million people and infects and debilitates around 500 million."
http://www.wehi.edu.au/news/press/19mar2003.htm
There are a few other sources coming up with similar figures... 300 - 500 million infected and 1 - 3 million dying per annum.