Clinical malaria vaccine development

Malaria is a major economic and public health problem in mainly sub-Saharan Africa. Globally 300-500 million new infections occur each year with 1-3 million fatal cases in particular young children. The most effective way to reduce disease and death from infectious diseases is to vaccinate susceptible populations. Increasing parasite resistance against available cheap anti-malarial drugs urges the need for development of malaria vaccines. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V.