Vaccine Development Strategies
Vaccine development is an arduous task in the best circumstances, which is made more difficult by the unique ability of parasites to evade the immune system and live with their human host. What follows is a general scheme for the typical malaria vaccine. Each stage presents challenges that can only be overcome with collaborative efforts of numerous groups of people.
Once an antigen is considered a possible candidate for clinical study, it must be produced in relatively large scale for human use and undergo safety tests in animals. Then the careful process of testing the safety, immunogenicity, and efficacy in humans begins. Since there are two major groups who need protection, those who have never been infected with malaria and those who may have partial immunity due to repeated infection, two clinical development tracks are often deployed. Combinations of antigens may be the best approach to target both groups. Before a vaccine is ready for general use, it must be shown to be effective in a large population-based, or pivotal, efficacy trial. The goal of FMVCC is to coordinate the US Federal effort and rapidly move toward the realization of an effective vaccine for all groups of people.
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Malaria Vaccine Development
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