Australian researchers close in on Malaria vaccine
AUSTRALIA : Australian researchers said Tuesday they were closing in
on a potential vaccine against malaria, with a study showing their
treatment had protected mice against several strains of the disease.
Michael Good, from Queensland’s Griffith University, said the vaccine
led to naturally existing white blood cells, or T-cells, attacking the
potentially deadly malaria parasite which lives in red blood cells.
“A single vaccination induced profound immunity to different malaria
parasite species,” the study, published Tuesday in the Journal of
Clinical Investigation, states.
Good said the team’s research was focused on inducing the white blood
cells to attack the parasite, whatever the malaria strain.
“The T-cells (white blood cells), when they’re induced to kill
malaria, can recognise proteins throughout the parasite, even internal
proteins in the parasite,” he told the ABC.
“So that’s where we think the novel aspect is: we’ve been able to
induce a form of immune response which can recognise molecules in the
parasite which are present in every single strain.” Good said he
believed it was the first time that a vaccine had been shown to protect
against more that two strains of malaria in mice.
The vaccine was expected to be cheap and easy to manufacture, he
added, meaningthat -- if applicable to humans -- it could have a
significant impact in poor countries where malaria kills thousands each
year.
“But we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves; we want to demonstrate,
first and foremost, that the vaccine is effective in humans,” Good told
the broadcaster.
AFP
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