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Malaria - the ongoing search for an effective vaccine

October 28, 2013

A British pharmaceuticals company has announced it will seek approval for the first vaccine against malaria in the coming year. If it works as hoped, the substance could prove a milestone in the treatment of this often deadly tropical disease.

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Every year the parasite that causes it kills around a million people worldwide, around half of them children under the age of five. The results of the first tests with the new treatment are sobering, however. They show that only every second vaccinated child actually develops a resistance to the disease, and there are still no figures on how long the protection will last. Tomorrow Today looks at the problems facing researchers in the search for an effective malaria vaccine.