Researchers hail possible malaria vaccine breakthrough

Year-long trial by Oxford University researchers carried out in Burkina Faso shows up to 77 percent efficacy.

A potential new malaria vaccine has proved highly effective in a trial in babies in Africa, pointing to it one day possibly helping reduce the death toll from the mosquito-borne disease that kills up to half a million young children a year. The candidate vaccine, developed by scientists at Britain’s University of Oxford and called R21/Matrix-M, showed up to 77 percent efficacy in the year-long trial of 450 children in Burkina Faso, researchers leading the trial said in a statement. The scientists, led by Adrian Hill, director of Oxford’s Jenner Institute and also one of the lead researchers behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, said they now plan to conduct final stage trials in some 4,800 children aged between five months and three years in four African countries.