Babies receive a battery of vaccines after they're born to protect them against dreaded diseases such as tetanus, whooping cough and polio. Public health officials in the developing world had hoped to soon add a malaria (Plasmodium falciparum) vaccine to the childhood immunization schedule to take advantage of the existing vaccine distribution system. However, new results from a trial of the leading candidate—a shot known as RTS,S, or Mosquirix—suggest that the vaccine reduces the risk of malaria by only a third in infants.
Given the low efficacy, some experts are now questioning whether RTS,S would be a useful addition to the childhood vaccination roster. John Lusingu, a malaria researcher at the National Institute for Medical Research in Tanga, Tanzania, and a principal investigator on the trial, points out that children six months and older are most affected by the disease, so it might make sense to administer the vaccine to older children, for whom the vaccine is more protective. But that would probably require an expansion of the routine immunization program to include additional clinic visits, which can be burdensome for health workers and families.
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