Learn bits
Health & Medicine
Mahesh

08/11/22 07:00 AM IST

New hope for malaria vaccine

In News 
  • The World Health Organization’s (WHO) recently approved RTS, S/AS01 (Mosquirix) developed by GlaxoSmithKline for immunising children against malaria was a big milestone after decades of gradual progress.
Malaria 
  • Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. It is caused by the bite of the female Anopheles mosquito if the mosquito itself is infected with a malarial parasite.
  • There are five kinds of malarial parasites out of which Plasmodium falciparum (parasite is responsible for 70% of cases in India), and Plasmodium vivax (globally, the commonest ones).
  • Malaria kills nearly 600,000 people every year, the majority of whom are children under the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa.
Need of the Vaccine 
  • Globally, there were an estimated 241 million malaria cases in 2020 in 85 malaria-endemic countries.
  • India contributed 1.7% of malaria cases and 1.2% of deaths globally.
  • Most of this increase came from countries in the WHO Africa Region, which accounted for 95% of cases.
  • Malaria deaths increased by 12% globally in 2020 compared with 2019, the majority of whom are children under the age of five.
  • Given the parasite’s very complex life cycle that correlates with protective immunity has been difficult.
RTS,S/AS01 Vaccine 
  • It is named RTS because it was engineered using genes (repeat (‘R’) and T-cell) of the protein of the Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite together with a viral surface antigen (‘S’) of the hepatitis B virus (HBsAg).
  • This protein was then mixed with additional HBsAg to improve purification, hence the extra “S”.
  • To boost immune responses, all protein-based recombinant vaccines rely heavily on a strong adjuvant (help vaccines work better). RTS, S is formulated with an adjuvant called AS01 developed at GSK.
Source- Indian Express 

More Related Current Affairs View All

05 Mar

First-ever comprehensive survey of India’s river dolphins

'Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the results of the first-ever comprehensive population estimation of riverine dolphins – Gangetic and Indus dolphins – done in In

Read More

05 Mar

Arresting women at night

'The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court in Deepa versus S. Vijayalakshmi and Others ruled that the legal provision in the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, which

Read More

05 Mar

Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023

'The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) looking to wrap up public consultations on the draft Rules for the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 by Mar

Read More

India’s First Ai-Driven Magazine Generator

Generate Your Custom Current Affairs Magazine using our AI in just 3 steps