Let's Talk About Malaria

Malaria, which has plagued mankind probably longer than any other disease, just got easier to fight.

Many thanks to a new vaccine called Mosquirix, which was just endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO).

This very vital vaccine is targeted towards children who are the most affected by malaria. It's meant to get their immune system into gear, to fight the deadliest of the five (5) malaria pathogens and the most prevalent in Africa.

Now, this is a bloody big deal basically because every single year, over four hundred thousand (400,000) people die from malaria—with over half of those being children under the age of five (5).

This is huge news, not just because it's the first vaccine against malaria, but because it's the first vaccine against any parasitic disease!

Unlike viruses and bacteria, parasites are much more complex—which means making an effective vaccine against them is way harder.

And for the sake of specificity, this vaccine isn't perfect, or a cure-all.

In clinical trials across Kenya, Malawi, Ghana, N̶i̶g̶e̶r̶i̶a̶ it had about a fifty percent (50%) efficacy against severe malaria in the first year, but that dropped to near zero in the fourth year.

Still and all, it is so much better than the next best measure, which is implementing bed nets—for children—that only cut malarial deaths by twenty percent (20%), so this is a massive jump.

Now, looking into this, I do want to note that the trials did not directly measure the vaccine's impact on death, leading some experts to wonder whether it will be worthwhile to actually deploy.

Regardless, at the very least, this is an important step forward.

The way I see it, you're stacking several imperfect but very helpful things to try and protect people.

Clearly, this is going to be a pretty much meaningful situation to watch.

I mean, the countries that took part in the clinical trials have already changed their vaccination routines.

And it's now possible—because of this—we might see some very important, great leaps here.

Let me know what you're thinking in those comments down below.