A Research Agenda for Malaria Eradication: Vaccines

Abstract: Vaccines could be a crucial component of efforts to eradicate malaria. Current attempts to develop malaria vaccines are primarily focused on Plasmodium falciparum and are directed towards reducing morbidity and mortality. Continued support for these efforts is essential, but if malaria vaccines are to be used as part of a repertoire of tools for elimination or eradication of malaria, they will need to have an impact on malaria transmission.

We introduce the concept of “vaccines that interrupt malaria transmission” (VIMT), which includes not only “classical” transmission-blocking vaccines that target the sexual and mosquito stages but also pre-erythrocytic and asexual stage vaccines that have an effect on transmission. VIMT may also include vaccines that target the vector to disrupt parasite development in the mosquito. Importantly, if eradication is to be achieved, malaria vaccine development efforts will need to target other malaria parasite species, especially Plasmodium vivax, where novel therapeutic vaccines against hypnozoites or preventive vaccines with effect against multiple stages could have enormous impact. A target product profile (TPP) for VIMT is proposed and a research agenda to address current knowledge gaps and develop tools necessary for design and development of VIMT is presented.

Citation: The malERA Consultative Group on Vaccines (2011) A Research Agenda for Malaria Eradication: Vaccines. PLoS Med 8(1): e1000398. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000398
Published: January 25, 2011

Funding: malERA received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: No competing interests: PLA, CC, VM, AS, DW. GB is the Chair of MALVAC, Chair of the USAID Malaria Vaccine Development Program Scientific Consultants Group, a member of the Board of Roll Back Malaria, and the APMEN Advisory Board. RB is an employee of Glaxo SmithKline (GSK) and owns GSK stock. GSK is developing malaria vaccines. At the time of the malERA meetings, RB was employed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. CL states that the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative has partnerships with several commercial entities developing malaria vaccines. Each partnership has defined access conditions.

Abbreviations: TBV, transmission-blocking vaccine; TPP, target product profile; VIMT, vaccines that interrupt malaria transmission

Copyright: © 2011 The malERA Consultative Group on Vaccines. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

More information:
A Research Agenda for Malaria Eradication: Vaccines (PDF)