Malaria vaccines

Question 1

rough malaria life cycle

Answer 1

infection
sporozoite state
entry to the liver
merozoite asexual reproduction in red blood cells
movement into gametocytes
transmission back into mosquito

Question 2

3 main strategies for malaria vaccination

Answer 2

pre-erythocytic, targeting parasites before and during liver stages
blood stage, targets merozoites
transmission blocking, targeting mature gametocytes to prevent transmission

Question 3

example of a used malaria vaccine

Answer 3

RTS,S, targets sporozoite protein
seems to be good for clinical malaria, but not great for preventing severe disease

Question 4

a potential vaccine strategy and issues

Answer 4

whole irradiated sporozyte approach- shows some promise, but needs to be stored in liquid nitrogen and slow to manufacture so hard to apply on a population level

Question 5

target antigens at early stage

Answer 5

Pfs48/45, 230

Question 6

target antigens at vectorstage

Answer 6

PfsHAP2, Pfs25

Question 7

how do transmission-controlling vaccines work

Answer 7

target bits which will work inside the mosquito, has been some success but not huge in clinical trials

Question 8

R0 of malaria in some cases

Answer 8

up to 10,000, and a transmission blocking vaccine probably won’t do much for this