Mosquirix has a low effective rate.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: The world’s first malaria vaccine has finally cut through all of the red tape prerequisite to being approved for use. However, the new treatment is only able to target a single strain that is prevalent in Africa, meaning South Asian countries like India have been left wanting.
British pharma company GlaxoSmithKline announced on Friday that their vaccine Mosquirix — the world’s first vaccine against the most dreaded vector borne disease in the world has been recommended to be licensed for use on babies in Africa.
The European Medicines Agency has endorsed the drug and will now need the approval of health officials in sub-Saharan Africa where the disease affected 198 million people in 2013, reported the Times of India.
During trials, the vaccine reduced malaria in cases by only 26 percent in infants aged 6 to 12-weeks-old, and efficacy decreased over time.
“This is not the big game changer that we were hoping for,” Dr. Martin De Smet, a malaria expert at Doctors Without Borders, informed CBS News. “The vaccine itself remains disappointing but this is an important step forward,” he said. Still, De Smet said the vaccine could help reduce the huge burden of malaria: there are about 200 million cases and more than 500,000 deaths every year, mostly in African children.
Gregory Hartl, a World Health Organization spokesman, said the European Medicines Agency decision was “not a recommendation to use this vaccine” and that WHO would issue its own assessment by November. He also disclosed it would consider factors not considered by the European regulator, including logistics and cost-effectiveness.
Prof Adrian Hill of the Jenner Institute, Oxford, said he was pleased and encouraged by the EMA’s decision but added that the vaccine was not a “magic bullet.”
“A bed net is more effective than this vaccine, but nonetheless it is a very significant scientific achievement,” he told the BBC. “I see it as a building block towards much more effective malaria vaccines in years to come.”