Malaria Vaccines Cuts Risk in Half

Malaria causes a lot of deaths every year and now researchers have made a giant leap forward by producing a vaccine that cuts the risk of the disease in half!

Malaria deaths have come down from more than a million to an estimated 780,000 a year, according to the latest report from the Roll Back Malaria partnership of the World Health Organisation. Three countries were certified malaria-free in the past four years, and nine more are preparing to move towards elimination – but that is out of 108 where the disease is endemic.

Since bed nets are not always effective, and not always used as they should be – there have been reports of some employed as fishing nets – and drugs can become ineffective, a vaccine could massively improve children’s chances.

While researchers started work on a potential Aids vaccine with extraordinary and, as it turned out, misplaced optimism, many in the scientific community thought a malaria vaccine was a non-starter. Nobody had ever made a vaccine against a parasite-borne disease.

Via the Guardian.

A Cure for Multiple Sclerosis – Maybe/Probably

That’s right, you heard me. Though experts are warning people not to get their hopes too high just yet, the initial results are pretty impressive.

The initial studies done in Italy were small but the outcomes were dramatic. In a group of 65 patients with relapsing-remitting MS (the most common form) who underwent surgery, the number of active lesions in the brain fell sharply, to 12 per cent from 50 per cent; in the two years after surgery, 73 per cent of patients had no symptoms.

Read more at the Globe & Mail

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