Because malaria is generally not a problem in the United States, the news that a vaccine has been developed for the mosquito-borne disease didn’t make the headlines.
That’s a shame.
On average, malaria kills 400,000 a year, mostly African children.
After 60 years of working on a vaccine, the World Health Organization last week endorsed the Mosquirixa vaccine.
Yes, 60 years.
Researchers say the vaccine — which is predicted to prevent only about 30% of severe cases — has been very difficult to manufacture because it lacks a traditional market, i.e. wealthy countries, and developing a vaccine against a parasite is especially challenging.
The reason Americans remain relatively unscathed is that we are embarrassingly rich with the resources to protect our citizens. Even so, scientists warn we should not relax our guard.
Malaria is a serious disease caused by a parasite that commonly infects the Anopheles family of mosquitoes. When an infected mosquito bites, the malaria parasites start reproducing explosively inside a person’s liver and blood.
According to the Centers for Disease and Control, malaria is not contagious like the flu or COVID-19, but because the malaria parasite is found in the red blood cells of an infected person, it can be transmitted through a blood transfusion, organ transplant, or the shared use of needles or syringes contaminated with blood. Malaria may also be transmitted from a mother to her unborn infant before or during delivery.
Malaria typically is found in tropical and subtropical countries where warmer temperatures allow the Anopheles mosquito to thrive.
Lack of resources and political instability have prevented the building of solid control programs in many malaria-prone countries such as sub-Saharan Africa and much of Central and South America. In addition, malaria parasites are increasingly resistant to antimalarial drugs, presenting another barrier to its control.
For the most part, malaria doesn’t exist in the United States because of our more temperate climate as well as the introduction in the 1950s of insecticides, drainage ditches constructed throughout our towns and the widespread use of window screens.
Several things, however, are turning the tide against us, including climate change and increased travel by Americans visiting malaria-prone countries and vice-versa. Today, an estimated 2,000 Americans are hospitalized each year with malaria despite the readily available anti-malaria medicine available to travelers.
So yes, we all should be relieved that success is being made against malaria, and celebrate the science that makes it possible.
— Susan Lynn
