Mosquito Spit To Do The Magic

Several detailed research are being carried out to combat malaria, the awful disease that takes a ravaging toll on the world’s children. More than 1 million children are affected annually. Malaria can cause severe headache, high temperature, vomiting and chills. The disease is caused by the one-celled Plasmodium parasite. There are four versions of the Plasmodium parasite that cause the disease, of which the Plasmodium falciparum is the most deadly of them. This parasite which is transmitted by a bite from an infected mosquito spends part of its life in human body and the rest in the mosquito.

Several vaccines in their experimental stages have been tested against the form of the parasite that resides in the human body. The biggest hurdle the vaccines faces is that the falciparum cells are able to escape the clutches of the human immune system by taking cover in the liver and blood cells. When these cells are in the human body, they mostly exist in the asexual form. They then transform into the sexual form in the mosquito’s gut and embed themselves in the gut lining of the mosquito, which eventually discretely makes its way to the salivary glands, where it is transmitted after a bite.

An exceptional malaria vaccine which is extracted from the saliva of the infected mosquitoes has recently been successfully cleared by the US FDA to be tried on people. This vaccine unlike other vaccines in developmental stage, is actually the frail version of the whole malaria causing parasite, falciparum. The vaccine which has been developed by a company called Sanaria based in Rockville, reduces the effect of the parasite by feeding human-infected blood to the mosquitoes. These mosquitoes were then killed by exposing them to radiations potent enough to cripple the parasite. The saliva containing the frail parasite is then extracted from the dead mosquitoes. Though this method, one can expect an average production of about 1200 vaccine doses per hour.

The aim is that when the human immune system is exposed to something that resembles the parasite but in relatively harmless, the body will counteract it with a much stronger resistance and immunity than with already existing vaccines that are based on tiny elements of the parasite.

Recipients who were given trial versions of the spit vaccine, before the manufacturing process commenced, were fully protected against the disease for more than 3 years. By June 2009, one can expect full-fledged trials and eventual successful get through; progressing from country to country, till malaria is totally eradicated for good.

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