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INTRODUCTION
9.30 – 9.35
Welcome/Introduction
Dr. Melinda Moree, Director, Malaria Vaccine Initiative, PATH (Moderator)
9.35 – 9.50
Is a Malaria Vaccine Possible?
Dr. Adrian Hill, Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow, University
of Oxford
For 50 years scientists have sought to develop a safe and effective malaria vaccine. For the most part, success has been elusive. Dr. Hill will discuss the specific factors that inspire confidence in the scientific community that a malaria vaccine—considered by many to be the “holy grail” of vaccines—is now possible. One key piece of evidence is the natural immunity people who live in endemic areas develop against the disease, if they survive it in childhood.
Malaria has been a stubborn foe because unlike other diseases that have been subdued with vaccines, it is caused by neither virus nor bacteria, but rather by a parasite. There has never been a vaccine developed against a parasitic disease that affects human beings. According to Dr. Hill, when viewed through a microscope, the tiny malaria parasite turns out to be a “huge beast” with thousands of proteins. Infection with this complex parasite all too frequently results in death, especially in children.
Dr. Hill will also discuss the role that the recent decoding of the mosquito and malaria parasite genomes will play. According to Dr. Hill, although the genome mapping work will not change the priorities now being set for testing previously discovered malaria proteins, the queue has been expanded from approximately 50 of them to 5,000. Currently, the vaccine field has the resources to test perhaps ten.
MALARIA: A KILLER DISEASE
9.50 – 10.00
Malaria and Children: Why the Youngest Suffer Most
(Snapshot of Malaria in Nigeria and The Gambia)
Dr. Folasade Olodude, Research Clinician
Medical Research Laboratories, Fajara, The Gambia
Malaria is a children’s disease. While it is endemic on five continents, most of the deaths that malaria causes each year are among African children under the age of five. All over West Africa, by the time children are five, they have either developed partial immunity or they haven’t survived. As a pediatrician working at Lagos University Teaching Hospital and Citizen Medical Centre in Lagos, Dr. Olodude treated hundreds of children with malaria and will discuss her firsthand experience there. These children, and those who never make it to the hospital, typically receive 300 infectious mosquito bites a year. She knows first-hand that malaria is not a one-time disease and often recurs every other month. As a researcher and pediatrician in The Gambia, she is working toward the day when a malaria vaccine is available to fight this devastating disease.
10.05 – 10.20
Question and Answer Session
THE DRIVE FOR A MALARIA VACCINE
10.20 – 10.40
Latest Advances in Building a Malaria Vaccine
Dr. Filip Dubovsky, Scientific Director, Malaria Vaccine Initiative
Many are confident that malaria vaccines are necessary and feasible. What will it take to create an effective malaria vaccine? Dr. Dubovsky will provide an overview of recent advances—including increasing global activity in malaria vaccine R&D, new approaches to vaccine development, and the results this activity is expected to yield.
MVI is supporting the development of fifteen discrete malaria candidates. Although many of these candidates are likely to fail in development (as is typical in drug and vaccine development) their advancement represents significant progress. For example, researchers traditionally have had difficulty manufacturing malaria vaccines at the scale and quality needed for testing in people—currently the only way to know if they will work. MVI support has led to seven vaccines overcoming production challenges and being put into vials. This has led to 13 clinical trials, five of which have occurred in Africa—in The Gambia, Kenya, and Mozambique. Dr. Dubovsky will highlight the progress of MVI and other programs around the globe that are moving malaria vaccines forward. More malaria vaccines are moving into clinical trials today than at any other time in history.
ZEROING IN TO SAVE AFRICA’S CHILDREN:
ANNOUNCEMENT OF A NEW CLINICAL TRIAL
10.40 – 10.55
Mozambique Malaria Vaccine Clinical Trial: Announcement
Dr. Pedro Alonso, Head of the Hospital Clinic of the University of Barcelona
and Director of Centro de Investigaçao em Saude Manhiça, Mozambique
Since the greatest burden from malaria is felt in sub-Saharan Africa and the vast majority of fatalities are children under the age of five, a major goal of the global effort is to develop a malaria vaccine that will protect very young African children. In Mozambique, up to 90 percent of the population is at risk for malaria, and malaria is the leading cause of hospitalization and death in children under the age of five. Dr. Alonso will announce the start of a large pediatric clinical trial of the world’s most advanced malaria vaccine candidate. This Phase 2 trial will involve close to 2,000 Mozambican children aged one through four. It is designed to assess the ability of GlaxoSmithKline Biological’s RTS,S/AS02A vaccine to impact malaria in children living in an area where malaria transmission is known to be high. RTS,S/AS02A has previously been found safe in trials with adults in the United States, Belgium and Kenya, and with children in Mozambique and The Gambia. It also prevented malaria for a short time in some adult volunteers in The Gambia. This clinical trial is a collaborative effort involving GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, Mozambique’s Centro de Investigaçao em Saude Manhiça and Ministry of Health, the Hospital Clinic of the University of Barcelona, and MVI.
THE PUBLIC HEALTH TOLL OF MALARIA
10.55 – 11.05
Living, Treating, and Researching Malaria
Dr. Kojo Koram Head, Epidemiology Unit
Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, University of Ghana,
Accra
Children infected with malaria typically develop fever, vomiting, headache, and flu-like symptoms. Untreated, the disease may progress rapidly (often within 24 hours) to convulsions, coma, and death, and effective treatments are becoming harder for the average person to obtain. Of the more than 500,000 African children who develop cerebral malaria (a severe form of the disease) each year, 10-20 percent die, and approximately seven percent are left with permanent neurological damage. Repeated episodes of malaria may lead to severe, life-threatening anemia, which can adversely affect a child’s growth and intellectual development. Dr. Koram, a physician and epidemiologist, will share his perspective on the day-to-day reality of this heavy disease burden. His experience with malaria has crystallized for him the need for lasting solutions.
11.05 – 11.30
Wrap Up/Question and Answer Session
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