New experimental vaccine blocks tranmission of malaria in mice

Chicago: US researchers said yesterday that they had developed an experimental vaccine that would neutralize the malaria parasite that carries the most deadly form of the disease inside its mosquito host.
The vaccine targets the mnicroscopic parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, inside the gut of the mosquito, blocking the organism's development, thereby preventing further transmission of the disease.
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health, (NIH) took a protein which is only present in the parasite during its time in the mosquito gut and souped it up by combining it with other proteins.
When it was administered to mice, the souped-up protein created long-lived antibodies, according to the study published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

Previous studies have shown that antibodies againts the protein, Pfs 25, in the blood meal of mosquitoes can hinder parasite development.
malaria affects up to 500 million people and kills more than one million children each year, mostly in africa, but a vaccine against the disease still eludes scientists despite decades' of research.
The most severe form of the disease is caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, which, once in a human's bloodstream, travels to the liver where it multiplies. New forms of the parasite are then released into the blood where they invade red blood cells, ultimately destroying them.