This archive report was first published on 27 August 2021.
More than 400,000 people die from malaria each year, with the vast majority being children under the age of five. A new approach to prevent the parasitic disease has shown promising results in sub-Saharan Africa, reducing severe cases by over 70% among infants.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on August 25, 2021, combined booster shots of an antimalarial vaccine with preventative drugs to achieve the dramatic reduction in severe cases.
Senior author Brian Greenwood of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine told AFP that the team was in touch with the World Health Organization about updating its recommendations based on the study's findings.
The RTS,S vaccine, developed by British pharmaceutical company GSK over 20 years ago, has a limited efficacy of around 30% over a period of three to four years. However, when combined with booster shots before each year's rainy season, the vaccine's protection was significantly improved.
The trial followed around 6,000 children aged five to 17 months from Burkina Faso and Mali over the course of three years. The children were split into three groups: those who received only the anti-malarial drugs sulfadoxine–pyrimethamine and amodiaquine, those who received only the RTS,S vaccine, and those who received a combination of both.
The combination was the most effective intervention, reducing malaria cases by 63%, hospitalizations by 71%, and deaths by 73% compared to the drugs alone.
Greenwood estimated that the combination of the booster vaccine doses and antimalarial drugs reduced hospitalizations and deaths by 90% compared to no intervention.
