Historic Go-Ahead For Malaria Vaccine To Protect African Children
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first paragraph.
Children across much of Africa are to be vaccinated against malaria in a historic moment in the fight against the deadly disease.
The vaccine has been developed by GSK, who have their headquarters on the Golden Mile in Brentford.
The vaccine is called RTS,S and is described like this in the first paragraph of its Wikipedia entry.
RTS,S/AS01 (trade name Mosquirix) is a recombinant protein-based malaria vaccine.
Approved for use by European regulators in July 2015, it is the world’s first licensed malaria vaccine and also the first vaccine licensed for use against a human parasitic disease of any kind. The RTS,S vaccine was conceived of and created in the late 1980s by scientists working at SmithKline Beecham Biologicals (now GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines) laboratories in Belgium. The vaccine was further developed through a collaboration between GSK and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and has been funded in part by the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Its efficacy ranges from 26 to 50% in infants and young children. On 23 October 2015, the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and the Malaria Policy Advisory Committee (MPAC) jointly recommended a pilot implementation of the vaccine in Africa.
When you consider how fast the Covid-19 vaccines were developed, this might appear to have taken a long time to be developed. But then as Wikipedia states, “this is the first vaccine licensed for use against a human parasitic disease of any kind.”
I can’t describe this as anything other than good news.
A Way Out Of The AstraZeneca Vaccine Row With The EU
This article on the BBC is entitled Brexit: EU Introduces Controls On Vaccines To NI.
These are the introductory paragraphs of the article.
The EU is introducing controls on vaccines made in the bloc, including to Northern Ireland, amid a row about delivery shortfalls.
Under the Brexit deal, all products should be exported from the EU to Northern Ireland without checks.
But the EU believed this could be used to circumvent export controls, with NI becoming a backdoor to the wider UK.
The row involving AstraZeneca, the UK and the EU is now getting serious,
I think, the EU are missing an opportunity.
My Experience Of The AstraZeneca Vaccine
Yesterday, I received my first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which I wrote about in Job Done – I’ve Now Had My First Covid-19 Vaccination.
As I am an engineer, who helped to finance a drug-delivery system, I know a bit about the subject of drug delivery.
My jab yesterday seemed to have been administered very quickly and painlessly, without fuss. I regularly have B12 injections as I’m coeliac and this AstraZeneca one was certainly less painful for me.
Have AstraZeneca designed the vaccine and its delivery system so that it will have application in mass vaccination situations like refugee camps, where thousands may need to be vaccinated quickly?
Consider.
- It can be transported and stored at easy-to-manage temperatures.
- I suspect that a skilled vaccinator can vaccinate more patients per hour, than with other vaccines.
- I didn’t feel a thing, which must help those with needle phobia.
- The vaccinator didn’t need to apply a plaster, just using a cotton wool pad and pressure. This must save time.
This looks to me, like disruptive innovation is at work.
Surely, though by streamlining the vaccination process, this will increase the number of patients vaccinated by a well-trained team. This will be what doctors ordered.
The Real Problem With The AstraZeneca Vaccine
I have worked a lot in the design of project management systems and very often, when projects go awry, it is due to a lack of resources.
It strikes me that the problem with the AstraZeneca vaccine, is that there are not enough factories to make the vaccine.
As it is easier to distribute and AstraZeneca are making it without profit, perhaps the EU should approach the UK about creating a couple of large factories to make the vaccine in suitable places across the UK and the EU.
A proportion of this increased production could be distributed to countries, that couldn’t afford a commercial vaccine or didn’t want to get ensnared by the Chinese in a Vaccines-for-Resources deal.
It should also be remembered that Oxford are at the last stages in the testing of a vaccine for malaria. That would surely be a superb encore for Oxford University and AstraZeneca. I suspect the UK will back it, but it would surely be better, if the EU backed it as well.
The Diamond Light Source And Malaria
I had to put a link to this page on the Diamond Light Source web site, which is entitled Malaria in Action.
This is the introductory paragraph.
In 2007 Helen Saibil was at a conference in Australia. Amongst the presentations there happened to be talks on the parasites malaria and toxoplasma and how they infect mammalian cells, causing disease. Helen is a structural biologist and whilst listening she began to realise that her newly acquired skills -she was doing electron tomography of cells- might allow the researchers to see things they had never seen before.
The page describes the work of the Diamond Light Source to understand and lead the might against malaria.
What Will Oxford Do For An Encore?
In the UK, I suspect nearly all of us have watched in admiration, as Oxford University have developed a Covid-19 vaccine for the world.
So what will be the University’s next big medical breakthrough.
Antibiotics
Today, this article on the BBC web site, which is entitled Oxford Research Tackles Threat Of Antibiotic Resistance, was published.
This was the introductory sub-heading.
Oxford University is opening a new research institute dedicated to tackling resistance to antibiotics.
To start the funding INEOS has chipped in a cool £100 million.
This paragraph summarises the project.
There will be 50 researchers working in the new Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Resistance, addressing the “over-use and mis-use” of antibiotics, which the university warned could cause 10 million excess deaths per year by 2050.
To put that ten million excess deaths into perspective, the Covid-19 pandemic has so far killed 2.05 million worldwide.
It should be remembered that David Cameron warned of this problem back in 2014, as was reported in this article on the BBC, which was entitled Antibiotic Resistance: Cameron Warns Of Medical ‘Dark Ages‘.
This was the introductory paragraph.
The world could soon be “cast back into the dark ages of medicine” unless action is taken to tackle the growing threat of resistance to antibiotics, Prime Minister David Cameron has said.
Will the Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Resistance, solve one of the most pressing problems facing the modern world?
Malaria Vaccine
Sometime, this week I either read in The Times or heard someone say on the BBC, that Oxford would soon be starting trials for a malaria vaccine developed by the same team, who developed the AstraZeneca vaccine for Covid-19.
This wasn’t the article in The Times, that I read, as it is dated the 5th of December 2020, but it does have a title of Malaria Vaccine Another Success Story For Jenner Institute Team Behind Covid Jab.
This is the first three paragraphs.
The Oxford team behind the coronavirus jab has taken a big step towards producing a cheap and effective vaccine for malaria.
The Jenner Institute said that it was due to enter the final stage of human trials with its vaccine, which it hopes could combat the almost half a million annual deaths, mainly in children.
“It’s going to be available in very large amounts — it works pretty well. And it’s going to be very low-priced,” Adrian Hill, director of the institute, said.
This looks to me, exactly what the world needs.
I’ve also found this page on the Oxford University web site, which is entitled Designer Malaria Vaccines.
This is the first two paragraphs on the page.
Malaria is one of the deadliest human diseases, killing a child in Africa every two minutes. A vaccine is urgently needed, but this is has proved extremely challenging because the malaria parasite is a master of disguise, able to change its surface coat to escape detection by the human body. However, structural biology is raising hopes for a vaccine against this killer parasite.
In order to replicate and develop, the malaria parasite must get inside human red blood cells – something that depends upon a malaria protein called RH5. Unlike the other variable malaria surface proteins, RH5 does not vary, making it more easily recognised and destroyed.
There is also this YouTube video.
From the video it looks like Oxford have used the Diamond Light Source to help develop the vaccine, just as the facility has been used to investigate Covid-19, as I wrote about in The Diamond Light Source And COVID-19.
I have added a new page called The Diamond Light Source And Malaria, which points to information on the Diamond Light web site.
There is also this Saturday Interview in The Times with Professor Adrian Hill, who is the Director of the Jenner Institute, at the University of Oxford.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Adrian Hill knew that this would be a big year. As head of Oxford’s Jenner Institute, this was the year, if all went well, he would announce a final large-scale trial into a vaccine to prevent a disease that was ravaging swathes of the planet. And this week, he did just that. Just not for the disease you’re thinking of.
A century after scientific research on the topic began, 30 years after he started working on it and eight years after this version was tried he has, he believes, an effective malaria vaccine. Now he is ready to try it at scale.
The interview is a must-read.
This paragraph from the article compares Covid-19 and malaria.
In the past 20 years, conventional public health investment has averted an estimated 1.5 billion malaria cases. Still, in an ordinary year it is one of the world’s biggest killers of children. “Malaria is a public health emergency. A lot more people will die in Africa this year from malaria than will die from Covid,” he says. “I don’t mean twice as many — probably ten times.”
The numbers show why a vaccine for malaria is so important.
Conclusion
Oxford University appears to have tremendous ambition, to see both these projects through to a successful conclusion.
I believe that their success with the Covid-19 vaccine will have major effects.
- People like Jim Ratcliffe and Bill and Melinda Gates, drug companies and charities like Wellcome Trust, will be prepared to fund more research.
- World-class researchers from all over the world will be drawn to work on Oxford’s projects.
- If Oxford or another group needs another powerful research tool, like the Diamond Light Source, the government will look favourably at the project.
People love to support winners! Just look at how kids follow the football team, at the top of the Premier League, when they first get interested in the game.
If the AstraZeneca vaccine is a success in the poorer countries of this world, that can’t afford the more expensive commercial vaccines, that this could change the world in bigger ways, than anybody imagines.
It could be extremely good not just for AstraZeneca, Oxford University and the UK, but the whole world. And not just in 2021, but in the future as well!
An Encore From The Team That Developed The Covid-19 Vaccine
This article on the Guardian is entitled Team Behind Oxford Covid Jab Start Final Stage Of Malaria Vaccine Trials.
This is the first two paragraphs.
The Oxford team that has produced a successful coronavirus vaccine is about to enter the final stage of human trials in its quest for an inoculation against malaria.
The Jenner Institute director, Prof Adrian Hill, said the malaria vaccine would be tested on 4,800 children in Africa next year after early trials yielded promising results.
This is obviously good news for those, who live in areas affected by malaria, where in Africa a child under five dies every two minutes.
But surely, if the Jenner Institute can crack malaria, they should have the expertise to modify the current Cobid-19 vaccine to handle any new variants.
Conclusion
In my view, this is doubly good news!
Home-Made Cabbage Soups Could Help Combat Malaria
The title of this post is the same as that of this article in The Times.
The article comes from this page on the Imperial College web site, which is entitled Scientists And Schoolkids Find Family Soups Have Antimalarial Properties.
This is the introduction.
London schoolchildren have found that some of their families’ soup recipes have antimalarial properties, with the help of Imperial scientists.
Researchers from Imperial College London helped the schoolchildren test their family soup broths for activity against the malaria parasite.
There is also this quote from one of the researchers; Professor Jake Baum.
We may have to look beyond the chemistry shelf for new drugs, and natural remedies shouldn’t be off our watch list, as artemisinin shows.
I also wonder, if natural remedies of this type, which are generally administered by a trusted relative or friend, come with a degree of care and concern, that is often lacking in healthcare.
We should also remember, that aspirin is not a modern drug, but was known to the ancient Egyptians.
The Anonymous Widower 