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Australian researchers are developing a vaccine to stop the damage done post-infection with the malaria parasite. Most of us think of malaria as an adult disease but in fact its impact is largely on children. Most of the 2 million people that malaria kills each year are kids. The malaria parasite has become highly drug resistant so there's been a major search for a vaccine, not very successfully it has to be said. But recent findings from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne may one day offer a vaccine with a difference. A difference because it won't ever prevent malaria infection. It's designed to stop the damage caused by the parasite. You see they've confirmed a suggestion first made in the 19th century that it's not the malaria organism itself which does the damage, but a chemical toxin it produces. The Melbourne research has proved that a vaccine can be developed against the toxin, which in mice at any rate successfully prevented the devastation wrought by the disease. Anti toxin vaccines aren't new - you've probably had a couple already - tetanus and diphtheria. So it shouldn't be hard to make another one for humans and see whether it works.
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