A Rockville-based biotech company at the forefront of the malaria vaccine effort will benefit from a $29 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative will channel most of the Gates grant to Sanaria Inc., which has spent $14 million developing a viable malaria vaccine.
“We were founded to develop a weakened vaccine to prevent disease and mortality in infants and young children, primarily in Africa,” Sanaria Chief Executive Officer Stephen L. Hoffman said.
Most vaccines use proteins and toxic compounds produced by pathogens to spur an immune response. The Sanaria vaccine, however, uses the whole parasite, which Hoffman said gives the body a better target for which to aim. “It is anticipated to prevent in its entirety malaria bloodstream infections in 90 percent of the recipients,” he said.
Sanaria will use the Gates money to establish a production facility. Hoffman expects clinical testing to begin as early as 2008.
The PATH initiative is an international nonprofit founded by the Gates foundation to fight the parasitic disease spread by mosquitos in tropical climates in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South and Central America.
As many as 1 million people die every year from the disease ? mostly children ? and between 300,000 and 500,000 people are currently infected, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite, the CDC Web site states. People with malaria often experience fever, chills and flu-like illness. Left untreated, they may develop severe complications and die.
In the United States, malaria is all but unheard of, but Americans traveling to tropical, undeveloped nations are urged to take precautionary measures. The disease has been a main concern of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
