Massive malaria vaccine trial to begin in Africa

[Im The Truth]

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – Researchers trying to create the world's first malaria vaccine are launching a massive medical trial as early as next month involving 16,000 children that could be the largest such trial ever conducted on children in Africa.

British-drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline PLC is teaming with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which is an anti-malaria charity funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and clinics and research centers in Africa to develop a malaria vaccine.

"This is probably going to be one of the largest studies in infants and in children in Africa," said Joe Cohen, a top vaccine researcher for GlaxoSmithKline.

Malaria, caused by parasites and spread by mosquitoes, kills nearly 1 million people every year, most of them children in Africa. The trial may start as early as next month, and should be well under way by January, said Cohen.

The massive vaccine trials will be conducted in Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. Dr. Christian Loucq, director of the Malaria Vaccine Initiative, said the project has been working over the past year to upgrade laboratory, computer and other equipment in those countries, train technicians, and even help develop local equivalents of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ensure the trials are properly monitored.

The Malaria Vaccine Initiative has so far spent $107 million on the project and has not yet calculated how much more it will spend. GlaxoSmithKline has spent $300 million so far, and estimates it will spend up to $100 million more.

Researchers working on the trial said in an interview in Johannesburg that much of the groundwork already has been laid in preliminary trials involving 4,000 children conducted since 2003. They said that even if their vaccine does not succeed, the widespread investment needed to conduct the trials means that Africa will be left with better communications, research and other infrastructure that could be used in the search for vaccines against other diseases such as AIDS.

While the researchers were optimistic, it will be several years before they know whether their vaccine candidate is safe and effective enough for wide use.

The preliminary trials showed the vaccine was likely to be at least 30 percent effective against mild malaria cases and about 50 percent effective against severe malaria. That may sound low compared to, for example, the injectable polio vaccine that is at least 90 percent effective. But researchers have found it difficult to pin down a vaccine for parasites, and further tests may show the GlaxoSmithKline candidate is more effective, Cohen said.

Dr. Michel Van Herp, an epidemiologist with the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres, said a vaccine might have to be more effective than the GlaxoSmithKline candidate has been shown to be so far to be worth the effort of putting it in use. But he acknowledged that matching the effectiveness of the polio vaccine has proven difficult, and said a partially effective vaccine "at least will reduce the workload on the health sector."

Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders, is not involved in vaccine research, but is at the forefront of treating malaria among the poor in Africa and elsewhere.

The vaccine would have to be used along with preventive measures like mosquito nets and insecticides to save lives.

Dr. Eusebio Macete, who is director of the Manhica Research Centre in Mozambique and was involved in some of the early field trials, said stopping any percentage of the disease would be welcomed in areas "where people are dying every day of malaria."

"It's a huge, huge burden, this disease," Macete said. "Whatever percentage we can get will be useful in reducing the impact of the disease."

[Nefertiti]

..."Study's" they say, I wouldnt trust this They've introduce this continent with all the disease's and colonization and white jesus this that and the third and still want to "perform" study's I feel bad for the children with the disease

[Soulosophy]

I agree with you Queen Nefertiti. I don't trust this either. I smell a big rat. called "Depopulation". Every time they say they doing studies with vaccines on our people, our brothers and sisters and children end up with all sorts of killer viruses using our people like lab animals. But who gives the all clear for them to be injecting children like this? Do the people and parents not have a say? Human rights no longer exist in Africa? How can we not have a voice for our people in our continent, regardless of where we are?

We are sure in a bad way as a people. Unity is a must!

UHURU!

[Sourakhata]

And the chemical war on Afrika goes on...!

Can't trust the pharmaceutical companies ever..! Can't neither trust a company who used orphans & 3 months old babies as 'laboratory animals' for AZT tests.

GSK, Pfizer, Sanofis-aventis, Procter & Gamble are all powerful & extremely dangerous Trojan Horses.

[Seeking Ma'at]

Another vaccine? Damn. They won't stop until they irradicate Us off the freakin' planet!
I guess their thought is that even after AIDS, We still havin' too many babies.

[BlkSpartacus]

They need to cut the crap and stop acting like they care for our people.

[NuAfrikanQueen]

if we were united with an army, they wouldn't have access to our babies. we should be outraged. i am assuming our Afrikan brothers and sisters are going to let this happen.

[NuAfrikanQueen]

"The art of war teaches us to rely not on the
likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness
to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking,
but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable."

any suggestions as to how we can go about stopping this. it is enough of us in here to get something poppin'. if we do not do anything this may be more devasting then the aids they vaccinated our people with. at this rate, there will be no one left to fight the devil. any suggestions as to how we can organize and end this madness?