This is BIG (potentially)

 

Covid-19 was a big scare a couple of years ago, and killed numerous people.  Vaccines were developed that saved numerous lives. Influenza (the flu) kills lots of people every year, but getting the flu shot can save your life. Everybody is really scared of Ebola.  If bird flu mutates, it could be really, really dangerous.

So malaria tends to be forgotten, because it's not a First World problem, in general. In the Third World, primarily Africa, it is estimated to kill around 600,000 people, predominantly children, every year. Furthermore, if you go to a place where malaria is endemic and you don't take your malaria prevention pills, you could catch it, like Cheryl (Cole) did.  And clearly getting it is NOT fun.

So news about a malaria vaccine tested in humans should be really BIG news, right?

I can't understand why it's not.

OK, it's not quite a vaccine. It's a monoclonal antibody treatment. Maybe that would be a little more difficult to administer all over Africa.

But still  -- it works.

New Malaria Antibody Yields Full Protection in Human Trial

"Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are laboratory-made protein clones that mimic the body’s natural immune defenses. MAM01 targets a highly conserved region of the Plasmodium falciparum circumsporozoite protein — a protein on the parasite’s outer surface — to block infection before it reaches the bloodstream.

The Phase 1, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial enrolled 38 healthy adults aged 18 to 50 with no prior malaria exposure. Participants received one dose of MAM01 or a placebo, and were then exposed to mosquitos carrying malaria, several months after dosing. This was done under carefully controlled conditions known as a challenge study. After the malaria challenge, none of the participants who received the highest dose of the monoclonal antibody developed infection, compared to all the participants in the placebo group."

I emphasize the words "none" and "all" in the above. That's like a perfect test  - that's phenomenal.

See why I said it's big?  Now, I don't know if there are special storage or preservation procedures that make this hard to distribute or administer, but it sure sounds like a potential game-changer in the malaria battle.

Reference: Lyke KE, Berry AA, Laurens MB, et al. Human monoclonal antibody MAM01 for protection against malaria in adults in the USA: a first-in-human, phase 1, dose-escalation, double-blind, placebo-controlled, adaptive trial. Lancet Infect Dis. 2025:S1473-3099(25)00481-5. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(25)00481-5

Kill the blue blobs. All of them.