UCC scientists developing patch to fight malaria

A new patch has been developed by scientists at University College Cork which could improve the effectiveness of a vaccine against malaria.

The device, which delivers small doses of the vaccine through tiny micro-needles, has delivered positive results during pre-clinical testing. 

Developed by researchers at the School of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacology and the Tyndall National Institute in UCC the patch has an array of tiny silicon microneedles which are able to deliver the vaccine through temporary pores in the skin without causing pain to the patient.

The scientists are now seeking to commercialise it, and are planning to travel to Silicon Valley in the coming week to meet potential investors.

The vaccine is delivered in a live adenovirus, similar to that which causes a common cold, but which is engineered to be safer and to deliver a protein from the malaria causing parasite.

Adenoviruses, however, can themselves provoke a significant immune response from the body, and as a result they cannot be used repeatedly to deliver a vaccine because the immune system blocks them out.

The team's research, however, published in the journal Scientific Reports, outlines how the patch gets around the problem by overcoming the pre-existing immunity. 

By combining the adenovirus with the microneedle technology, the researchers found they could induce higher levels of immunity against malaria with lower doses of the vaccine.

They found that if the microneedle patch was used in the first instance, the same adenovirus based vaccine could be used repeatedly, and that it would induce potent and highly protective immune responses in a pre-clinical situation.

The scientists must next test the device in a clinical setting.

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World Health Day 2014: Preventing vector-borne diseases

This World Health Day – 7 April – WHO is highlighting the serious and increasing threat of vector-borne diseases, with the slogan “Small bite, big threat”.

More than half the world’s population is at risk from diseases such as malaria, dengue, leishmaniasis, Lyme disease, schistosomiasis, and yellow fever, carried by mosquitoes, flies, ticks, water snails and other vectors. Every year, more than one billion people are infected and more than one million die from vector-borne diseases.

The Organization also emphasizes that these diseases are entirely preventable. 

Newly published "A global brief on vector-borne diseases" outlines steps that governments, community groups and families can all take to protect people from infection.






Mosquito-borne dengue, for example, is now found in 100 countries, putting more than 2.5 billion people - over 40% of the world's population - at risk. Dengue has recently been reported in China, Portugal and the state of Florida, in the United States of America.  Reports from Greece say that malaria has returned there for the first time in 40 years. 

On World Health Day 2014, WHO is calling for a renewed focus on vector control and better provision of safe water, sanitation and hygiene – key strategies outlined in WHO’s 2011 Roadmap for the control, elimination and eradication of neglected tropical diseases, which sets targets for the period 2012–2020.

View full report here on WHO 

Hope for malaria vaccine by 2015

A UK firm is seeking regulatory approval for the world's first malaria vaccine after trial data showed that it had cut the number of cases in African children. Experts say that they are optimistic about the possibility of the world's first vaccine after the trial results.

Malaria, a mosquito-borne parasitic disease, kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide every year. Scientists say an effective vaccine is key to attempts to eradicate it.

The vaccine known as RTS,S was found to have almost halved the number of malaria cases in young children in the trial and to have reduced by about 25% the number of malaria cases in infants.

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