Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Malaria kills, yet no vaccine as of date!!

Do we really think we could find a vaccine for malaria in the decades ahead. Decades because all we have done in the last decade is come close to finding one. Your ideas please.

Of course "we" could. But then again malaria is a disease of dark skinned people in third-world countries so why should anyone care?

We have far more important priorities such as who is on TV tonight and who will be in the Super Bowl.

Compare the money spent each year on malaria research to the money spent advertising toilet paper. Guess which one is more important.

Malaria is a little harder to vaccinate against than most people realize. It is caused by a multicellular organism, Plasmodium species, and a vaccine against malaria would have to raise antibodies to many different proteins. This is further complicated by the fact that Plasmodium invades the red blood cells and multiplies within that sequestered space, free from the effects of antibodies. The blood cell then lyses, releasing the parasites which invade other red blood cells. This lysis is synchronised, resulting in the alternating pattern of chills/fever and relatively normal functioning that is typical of malaria.

It isn't as easy as it sounds. Viruses and bacteria are much easier to develop vaccines against than parasitic diseases like Malaria, Schistosomiasis, and Trypanosomiasis (Sleeping Sickness). All are significant diseases in the tropics. All are being researched currently.

Of course, the perfect preventative has been around for more than a century already: the gin & tonic. Maintain a plentiful level of quinine and alcohol in your system, and no plasmodium stands a chance!

Rose wrote:
"Malaria is a little harder to vaccinate against than most people realize."

True perhaps. But equally true that if it was a disease striking New York city is would have been eradicated decades ago.

Scrapin Pegs wrote:
"Maintain a plentiful level of quinine and alcohol in your system, and no plasmodium stands a chance!"

Nonsense.

DA:

Are you suggesting all diseases in New York have been eradicated decades ago? Or are there some special interests in Malaria centered in New York that will be more effective for Malaria than all the others?
jjw

No. I'm suggesting that were malaria a disease of New York city's residents it would have received far more attention. In fact that is precisely what I wrote.

Here is a dose of reality:
Malaria infects an estimated 300 to 500 million people each year and causes between 1.5 and 2.7 million deaths, 90 percent of which are children under the age of five in Africa.

and

... Nchinda reports that between 1990 to 1992, only $58 million a year was spent on malaria research while $56 billion was spent internationally on medical research as a whole. "Expressed as research investment per death, malaria research receives about $42 per fatal case, much less than for other diseases such as HIV/AIDS ($3,270) and asthma ($789)," he stated.

300 to 500 million people die each year and it gets less support than asthma. That pretty much says it all.

Source:
World Health Organization
http://w3.whosea.org/EN/Section10/Section21/Section334.htm
and related links