Otarigho Benson

Malaria Vaccine: Hope in the Pipeline Otarigho Benson

Malaria has been eating deep into the heart of mankind from time immemorial. This disease affects 10 percent of the world?s population. Every year about 2 million children are reported dead. In an attempt to control this disease since the late 1940s till date, many control measures had been put in place to reduce human suffering due to malaria. However many of these measures, if not all, had proved abortive in an effective control of this disease. Even though control measures are not effective, medicine will never leave mankind to her fate. The one and only hope for this human suffering to reduce or completely end, was the invention of malaria vaccine and since then, hundreds of vaccine had been developed, more than 80 had been tried at the preclinical stage, many are at the clinical phase and yet no success. However, the only one vaccine the world is waiting to be the first malaria vaccine to be licensed is the RTS, S vaccine. The RTS, S vaccine is in phase 3 presently, a clinical trial in 11 sites in seven sub-Saharan African countries. If this phase 3 clinical trial is successful, by first quarter of 2015 the world will celebrate the first successful vaccine against malaria