Experts identify key triggers in malaria vaccine hunt

Scientists have identified two surface molecules in the malaria parasite that could lead to developing a vaccine against the disease that kills at least one million people each year, a medical journal said on Wednesday.

The molecules, or antigens, appear to trigger powerful immune responses in patients that help protect them from falling ill in subsequent infections.

Led by Freya Fowkes at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia, researchers plowed through 33 previous studies which analyzed people who had suffered from malaria in the past but were now immune.

What they found was that two antigens -- MSP-3 and MSP-119 -- triggered particularly powerful antibodies in patients, which protected them from falling ill subsequently with malaria by 54 and 18 per cent, respectively.

"People in malaria endemic areas develop natural immunity to malaria, what (these studies) have done is go into these communities and see what antigens (the people) have immunity to and see if we can use these antigens to make vaccines," Fowkes told Reuters ahead of the publication of the team's findings.

We've reviewed all the literature that looks at surface antigens ... results suggest that response to the two (antigens) were most indicative of protection against clinical disease. There may be other antigens out there that may be protective but they have just not been well studied."