Global team finds that artemesinin therapies are as safe as quinine for women in first trimester

By Sarah C.B. Guthrie 

Artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs), medications widely used against malaria, are safe to administer to women in their first trimester of pregnancy, according to research published today. ACTs had previously been recommended at that stage of pregnancy only in life-saving circumstances. 

By Bobbi Nodell and Alex Murphy

As 400,000 people a year are still being killed by malaria, researchers in Seattle are fervently working on a vaccine.

How close are they?

Well, they have several hurdles left but in the next 10 years, there very well could be a malaria vaccine given enough funding, said researchers Stefan Kappe and Jim Kublin, who are working on a vaccine candidate at the Center for Infectious Disease Research (CID Research) in Seattle.

By Jessica Berman

A genetically engineered malaria vaccine has been shown to prevent the disease in mice, researchers say. The findings offer hope of halting the illness in humans, as well as stopping transmission of the mosquito-borne disease.

Researchers at the Center for Infectious Disease Research (CIDR) at the University of Washington, in conjunction with the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, have developed a vaccine that uses the entire malaria-causing parasite — called P. falciparum — to stimulate a protective immune response.

Creating protective immunity against the early liver stage of malaria infection is feasible, but has been difficult to achieve in regions with high rates of malaria infection. Many current malaria vaccines target the pre-erythrocytic stage of infection in the liver, however in endemic regions, increased blood stage exposure is associated with decrease vaccine efficacy, challenging current malaria vaccine efforts.