MALARIA KILLS one child every 30 seconds in Africa, that's nearly 1 million children under 5 years of age, every year. Half the world's population remain at risk, including travelers to these affected countries. The PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) — which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced its intention to create a new vaccine, called a transmission-blocking vaccine (TBV) which prevents mosquitos that carry the disease from spreading it further.
Developed by Filipino Scientist RHOEL DINGLASAN PhD, MPH (photo above) an entomologist and biologist at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, it would instead work within the mosquito gut. Dinglasan has found an antigen, called AnAPN1, that causes humans to create antibodies that prevent transmission of malaria by mosquitoes. Get enough of these antibodies into mosquitoes, and you lock the disease up there and prevent it from infecting us. Sounds good, but how do you implement such a strategy? You can hardly vaccinate the mosquitoes themselves. Instead, you put the AnAPN1 into their food source: us. A mosquito that bites an inoculated person would pick up the antibodies and then be sidelined from the malaria-transmission game.
Thanks to TIME Magazine for above info. Read it in full there:
time.com
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