5 ms·

effective at reducing malaria incidence by 50%... Is that what we are calling 'effective vaccine'? It's a major achievement, but if this is 'effective vaccine

• natrius 15y ago
  Yes, that is an effective vaccine. A vaccine does not necessarily confer 100% protection against a disease. Comparing "effective vaccine" to "effective cure" is nonsensical.
  • Volpe 15y ago
    I was comparing the word 'effective' in a different context to illustrate it's misuse. Vaccines in general are 90%+ (sometimes 100%). (See polio or hepatitis for examples). Those that argue herd immunity - go and read it... all of the thresholds are > 50% This is categorically not 'effective', a breakthrough, yes. But it won't get rid of malaria.
• zmanian 15y ago
  The thing to remember about malaria is that is an infectious disease. In order to have a malaria epidemic, Alice needs to be bitten by a malaria carrying mosquito. Alice needs to become ill and have a large number of juvenile parasites in her blood. She then needs to be bitten by another mosquito. This parasites becomes adults in the mosquito's gut and the mosquito then needs to bite Bob and infect him. A vaccine that reduces the chances of an infected individual becoming ill effectively reduces the reproduction rate of malaria. In a vaccinated area, one would expect to see reductions in the number of infected people during the high season by potentially an order of magnitude.
  • wisty 15y ago
    Malaria can survive in cattle, not just humans. Mosquitoes bite infected cows (which don't necessarily have symptoms), then bite humans. It's not like most infections diseases, which can be entirely eradicated just by vaccinating a critical number of people.
    • jfb 15y ago
      This is one of the reasons that malaria incidence goes down as the number of cattle being raised goes up. Anopheles is happy to take a blood meal from a beef rather than a human.
      • FrojoS 15y ago
        Do you have a source for this? I find this weird. Wouldn't more food for Anopheles increase their population and hence the risk for humans to get bitten?
        • mekoka 15y ago
          It's been observed that the anophele does prefer cattle. I just dug this though http://www.malariajournal.com/content/6/1/100 http://www.malariajournal.com/content/6/1/100
• sliverstorm 15y ago
  Most vaccines are, as I recall, 60-80% effective. Vaccines are different from cures; they operate through herd immunity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity