WHO and EVI update malaria vaccine technology roadmap
Aims for effective malaria vaccines to be developed by 2030
Despite major progress during the past decade in the scale-up of available control measures, malaria remains the most devastating disease in children in many African countries.
Although continued innovations in diagnostic testing, vector control measures and anti-malarial drugs are likely to have an important role in accelerating progress, malaria vaccines also have great potential to contribute to defeating malaria – if they can be successfully developed.
The World Health Organisation (WHO), together with the European Vaccine Initiative (EVI) as members of the Malaria Vaccine Funders Group, have launched an update to the Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap, which was initially published in 2006.
It forms a strategic framework that underpins the activities of the global malaria vaccine research and development community.
In response to substantial changes in malaria epidemiology and control and acknowledging important developments in malaria research over the last seven years, the strategic goals and priority areas of the roadmap have been expanded and updated.
The new goals include the standardisation of assays and of clinical trial design and assessment, and ensuring that results from all funded malaria vaccine trials are publicly available within 12 months of the last subject visit.
The revision also includes the need to address malaria infections caused by both Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum, all malaria-endemic areas (in contrast to sub-Saharan Africa alone), and all ages (in contrast to children younger than five only).
By 2030 the goal is to have developed malaria vaccines with protective efficacy of at least 75% against clinical malaria suitable for administration to at-risk groups in malaria endemic areas.
It also aims to have developed malaria vaccines that reduce transmission of the parasite and thereby substantially reduce the incidence of human malaria infection. This will enable elimination in multiple settings. Vaccines to reduce transmission should be suitable for administration in mass campaigns.
