According to the United Nations, malaria is the biggest killer of children in the world. In Africa, one child dies from the disease every minute. But could children actually be the key to developing a successful vaccine? Well, researchers who've been looking at children in Tanzania with a naturally acquired immunity to malaria have been making some interesting discoveries. James Coomarasamy spoke to Professor Jonathan Kurtis from Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University. He's one of the researchers involved in the project. So what's he found out?
We found that the parasite has a particular protein that's absolutely essential for the parasite to escape from the red blood cell, that's where it lives. And by attacking that protein with antibodies, we are able to trap the parasite inside the red cell where it cannot do any further damage, it can't propagate. So it's sort of like trapping the parasite inside a burning house.
Right. Then what're the implications of this?
Well, the hope is that will be able to vaccinate young children before they get severe disease and enable them to control their parasitaemia such that whilst they might get infected, they weren't going to have severe disease or infected mortality.
