Pinoy develops vaccine vs malaria

MANILA, Philippines - A Filipino professor in the United States has developed a “robust” vaccine against malaria, a report on GMANews.TV said yesterday.

The report said Dr. Rhoel Dinglasan, a professor at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has developed a new kind of transmission-blocking vaccine (TBV), which works by preventing mosquitoes from spreading the disease.

Dinglasan, a faculty member of the school’s molecular microbiology and immunology department, explained on GMA-7’s “24 Oras” newscast that the vaccine prevents the development of the malaria parasite in mosquitoes, thereby also preventing its transmission to humans.

The report on GMANews.TV also cited an article on the website of Time magazine which said that Dinglasan has developed the antigen AnAPN1 which stimulates the creation of antibodies in humans to prevent the transmission of malaria by mosquitoes.

The Time magazine article further stated that the vaccine works when a mosquito bites an inoculated person and picks up the antibodies, locking the disease up in the mosquito’s gut.

Traditional vaccines work by introducing a killed or weakened version of the disease into the body, where the immune system spots it and cranks out antibodies against it. Then if a wild strain of the pathogen comes along later, one that has the power to sicken or kill, the body is ready for it.

But the new approach is different, the article said.

Dinglasan told 24 Oras: “For the next two years, we are going to be developing the pre-clinical aspects of this vaccine to determine whether or not we could actually make enough vaccines for clinical trials.”

It may take five to 10 years for the vaccine to be fully developed and distributed, Dinglasan added.

Several TBVs against malaria have been developed but were unsuccessful, with some causing side effects like skin disorders when tested on humans.

The AnAPN1 vaccine has only been tested in human blood in the laboratory and it has yet to be determined if it causes any negative reactions in people, the Time magazine article said.

However, the article still described Dinglasan’s TBV as “robust” as it has been proven effective against major types of malaria and all species of mosquitoes tested.

“I think it’s very encouraging,” says Dr. Lee Hall, chief of the Parasitology and International Programs branch of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). “It’s a big endorsement by the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) - which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - for this general approach.”

The MVI announced the collaboration with the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Sabin Vaccine Institute to create the vaccine.

Malaria is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium, which is transmitted via the bites of infected mosquitoes. In the human body, the parasites multiply in the liver, and then infect red blood cells, the World Health Organization said.

Symptoms of malaria include fever, headache, and vomiting, and usually appear between 10 and 15 days after the mosquito bite.

If not treated, malaria can quickly become life-threatening by disrupting the blood supply to vital organs, WHO added.