The GiveWell Blog

Strong results for malaria vaccine

| by Elie
This post is more than 16 years old

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reports strong results from a clinical trial testing the efficacy of a malaria vaccine. The double-blind, randomized trial found a significant impact on malaria incidence among the group receiving the malaria vaccine.

The full study is available here.

The summary results:

  • 894 children were randomly assigned to receive the either the malaria vaccine or hte control vaccine.
  • Among the children who completed the study according to the protocol, 32 of 402 (8%) who received the malaria vaccine developed clinical malaria and 66 of 407 (16%) in the control group did.
  • Results were similar when all 894 children were included in the intention-to-treat analysis.
  • Results were similar in both the trial locations (Tanzania and Kenya).

(h/t Chris Blattman)

Comments

  • Crust on January 6, 2009 at 10:38 pm said:

    Here is a free link to the NEJM editorial on this study.

    This is good news obviously, a factor of two improvement. Still, presumably the pathogen would develop resistance fairly quickly (my impression is vaccines for most diseases have much higher efficacy rates).

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