L
LequteMan
Guest
A new and more effective vaccine is under way and it will arrive Nigeria in 2015, one of the scientist working on the vaccine research, Dr. Sophie Biernaux, said on Monday.
According to her, the vaccine, RTS,S, has been submitted to the European Medicines Regulatory Agency for approval.
According to her, the vaccine triggers the body’s immune system, defending it against the Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite.
“The vaccine is designed to prevent the parasite from infecting, maturing and multiplying in the liver, after which time the parasite would re-enter the bloodstream and infect red blood cells, leading to disease symptoms. In the phase III efficacy trial, RTS,S was administered in three doses, one month apart and its outcome was outstanding.
Biernaux said the data collated from the phase III vaccine trial programme was conducted at 13 African research centres in eight African countries and that the exercise involved 16,000 infants and young children.
She named Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania as some of the countries used for the research.
The research is being championed by GlaxoSmithKline with a US$200m grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative.
Should the vaccine produced by GlaxoSmithKline be approved by the EMA, the WHO said, it would be changing malaria treatment guidelines for malaria by 2015 such that it would be included in the national immunisation schedules of young children and babies in Africa.
#Malaria #Nigeria #Vaccine
According to her, the vaccine, RTS,S, has been submitted to the European Medicines Regulatory Agency for approval.
According to her, the vaccine triggers the body’s immune system, defending it against the Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite.
“The vaccine is designed to prevent the parasite from infecting, maturing and multiplying in the liver, after which time the parasite would re-enter the bloodstream and infect red blood cells, leading to disease symptoms. In the phase III efficacy trial, RTS,S was administered in three doses, one month apart and its outcome was outstanding.
Biernaux said the data collated from the phase III vaccine trial programme was conducted at 13 African research centres in eight African countries and that the exercise involved 16,000 infants and young children.
She named Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania as some of the countries used for the research.
The research is being championed by GlaxoSmithKline with a US$200m grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative.
Should the vaccine produced by GlaxoSmithKline be approved by the EMA, the WHO said, it would be changing malaria treatment guidelines for malaria by 2015 such that it would be included in the national immunisation schedules of young children and babies in Africa.
#Malaria #Nigeria #Vaccine