New malaria vaccine is 77 percent effective: study

The researchers that helped create the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine have now created a vaccine for malaria that has been found to be 77 percent effective.

The vaccine is the first of its kind, according to a clinical trial released on Thursday, to meet the World Health Organization’s 75 percent efficacy goal. Other shots that exist have a significantly lower efficacy rate.

Researchers who studied the effects of the vaccine on 450 children in west Africa have said that the success of their findings has encouraged them to launch a third clinical trial that would study the vaccine in almost 5,000 children in four African countries, according to the University of Oxford.

“These are very exciting results showing unprecedented efficacy levels from a vaccine that has been well tolerated in our trial programme. We look forward to the upcoming phase III trial to demonstrate large-scale safety and efficacy data for a vaccine that is greatly needed in this region,” Halidou Tinto, a professor in parasitology, said in a statement.

Malaria is caused by parasites and is spread through the bites of mosquitos that carry the disease. It is preventable and treatable, but an effective vaccine has been difficult to come by due to the complexities of the parasite, according to Forbes.

“Despite global efforts against malaria, too many lives are still lost to this disease, especially babies and young children,” Lynsey Bilsland, of the Wellcome Trust, which helped fund the research for the vaccine, said in a statement. “Vaccines could change this. This is an extremely promising result showing high efficacy of a safe, low-cost, scalable vaccine designed to reach the huge numbers of children who are most at risk of the devastating impact of Malaria. Whilst further studies are required, this marks a significant and exciting step forward on an critical global health challenge.”