Good news. Research shows that long-term protection against malaria is indeed possible. Previously it was thought that this was not possible.
Two and a half years ago, ten volunteers participated in an experimental immunization method against malaria from the UMC St. Radboud. The subjects used the malaria drug chloroquine . for several months and were exposed to the bite of several infected malaria mosquitoes several times during the same period.
No symptoms
The researchers re-exposed six of the original ten volunteers to mosquitoes after two and a half years. , with the same malaria parasites with which the volunteers were originally infected. And as it turned out:four of the six test subjects showed a complete protection see. A blood infection was also prevented by their immune response. The two other volunteers also showed a defense response , but it was no longer strong enough to treat a blood infection with malaria to stop.
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Big Breakthrough
The researchers consider the experiment to be a major breakthrough in eliciting a long-term protection against the disease † "The generally accepted idea that built-up protection against malaria also disappears relatively quickly, can be thrown into the trash because of this research," says research leader Robert Sauerwein in the American trade journal The Lancet †
Unfortunately, this method cannot yet be applied equally to everyone. A follow-up investigation . should therefore also be carried out come. “We need to answer a few other important questions first,” Sauerwein says. 'After two and a half years, our volunteers were infected with the same malaria strain which was used for the first, original infection. In practice, people are infected by various malaria strains.'
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