NEW DELHI New Delhi: A late-liver-stage attenuated vaccine for the malaria parasite has been found safe and effective in a small clinical trial against the mosquito-spread disease that has killed 608,000 people worldwide. The trial, conducted by researchers at Leiden University Medical Center and Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands, found that vaccination with a genetically modified Plasmodium falciparum parasite, known as GA2, induced a favorable immune response, Also provided protection from infection.
For the trial, the team randomly assigned 25 healthy adult volunteers who had not been previously exposed to malaria to receive vaccination with the genetically modified P. falciparum parasite (GA2) – which can be replicated in the liver for a long time. Was designed to grow up to. Ten participants were placed in the GA2 group, while 10 were added to the GA1 group and five to the placebo group. Each group included both male and female volunteers. Three vaccination sessions at 28-day intervals involved exposure to 50 mosquitoes that were infected with the respective parasites or were not infected in the case of the placebo group.
Three weeks after the final vaccination, all participants were exposed to controlled human malaria infection to evaluate protective efficacy. The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that protective efficacy was seen in 89 percent of people in the GA2 group. . There was a protective effect in only 13 percent of people in the GA1 group, while there was none in those in the placebo group.
Additionally, the team also found that no breakthrough infections occurred after exposure to GA2, indicating a strong safety profile. GA2 participants also displayed a stronger proinflammatory response. Both GA2 and GA1 also induced similar antibody titers against P. falciparum circumsporozoite proteins. The researchers said this suggests that the increased protection with GA2 is linked to cellular immune responses rather than antibody levels alone.
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