Anti-Malaria shot by 2019?

KUALA LUMPUR: The world's first vaccine against malaria – Plasmodium falciparum sporozoite (PfSPZ) – which Malaysian Dr Betty Sim Kim Lee (pix) helped develop is expected to be available as early as 2019.
The breakthrough also comes courtesy of her husband, Dr Stephen L. Hoffman, a tropical infectious diseases specialist, and their team of experts working under a Maryland-based biotech company, Sanaria Inc.
Clinical tests are being carried out in several countries, including the United States, Europe, Africa and Germany.
Sim, who is here with her husband to attend the Sixth Asean Congress of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology, told reporters today that the vaccine would be available in five years' time.
The Sanaria executive vice-president and mother of three sons is happy that there will be a vaccine for malaria, as the disease kills 600,000 people worldwide annually.
She said the vaccine consists of live, weakened and purified malaria parasites that do not cause illness.
"Mosquitoes are bred in sterile conditions, and they do not have any micro-organisms. So, when parasites develop in the mosquitoes, they are harvested and turned into the vaccine," said the Kota Baru-bred who received her early education at SK Zainab and Sultan Ismail College before pursuing her undergraduate and graduate studies at Universiti Malaya.
She has worked on filariasis (the disease that causes elephantiasis) and malaria since her university days, besides other infectious diseases like dengue fever, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), anthrax and plague.
Hoffman, who is Sanaria Inc chief executive and scientific officer, hoped the vaccine will be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) once Sanaria has completed the tests.
To date, there is no effective vaccine available to tackle the mosquito-borne disease. Hoffman said PfSPZ is believed to be able to reduce 90% of malaria cases, as well as serve as the best prevention of the disease.