Malaria Vaccine Research at the Naval Medical Research Center
Abstract
At a time in bioscience when many people assume that vaccines are available for most infectious diseases, it often comes as a surprise that the ancient disease, malaria, is still the most important parasitic infectious disease in the world today. It also poses one of the greatest threats to the U.S. military operational forces than any other naturally-occurring infectious disease. In fact, in every campaign this century fought where malaria was present, more casualties resulted from malaria than from bullets. During the war in Vietnam, entire divisions were rendered ineffective due to large numbers of malaria cases.(1) Even more importantly for the world population there are between 300 and 500 million cases each year and between 1.5 and 2.7 million deaths annually, mostly in children living in Sub Saharan Africa.(2) Drugs used to prevent malaria infection, though universally effective until the 1960's and 1970's, are either no longer effective or are becoming less effective in many parts of the world due to the development of drug resistance. And yet despite over 15 years of research, there is still no licensed vaccine against malaria.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA405748
Entities
People
- Daniel J. Carucci
Organizations
- Naval Medical Research Center