There is a new malaria vaccine with chattels analogous to the successful RNA-based vaccines for COVID-19. It's obvious that the malarial parasite, plasmodium, has a protein that blocks the production of T-cells, which prevents our immune system from shielding us against illnesses it has previously run into. The new vaccine supposedly evades the protein and immunises us against malaria with good effect
The dreadful mosquito is the most unlikely aircraft of all - a fragile body, with its spiny armour of wings, legs and antennae pointing in every possible direction. The fair sex of the species, with her aggro image, is, indeed, the femme fatale, in more ways than one. Her bite, ornibble, is of paramount importance.
This she enacts with computerised consistency, because she needs blood to propagate her race. When she scans her horizon for a possible target, her wings beat 200-600 strokes a second.
She also has the innate ability to switch off her incredible wing muscles in her midsection and enable them to relax and contract at the proverbial thought of a bite. Her 'protocol' is variable.
While some of the 3,500 mosquito species bite only during daytime, others revel in their activity at dusk, especially when it is dark. And, if rain can't affect her movements, nothing else will, except, of course, the good old mosquito net, or state-of-the-art repellent.
The mosquito that bites at night uses sensors on her two antennae and three pairs of legs to find herself a grand meal, because she cannot see in the dark. She picks her target primarily because she catches the scent of exhaled carbon di oxide. Before long, she gets close to determine whether you are 'game' to her culinary predilections. Smart creature that she is, a mosquito is often in the family way - having mated already - even before she has had her first blood meal.
While the bite of a female mosquito - of the genus anopheles - transmits malaria to people, the malevolent insect has an explosive biology. One mosquito bite can inject up to 500 malaria sporozoites: each of them yielding approximately 30,000 daughters. While the males of all species - and, females of several species - survive essentially on the nectar of flowers and also play a vital role in pollination, there are certain mosquito species that prefer the blood of mice and elephants, not just human beings.
Mosquitoes have destroyed civilisations -ancient Greece and Rome. Even today, the devastation of mosquito-borne illnesses endures, predominantly in the form of malaria, yellow and dengue fevers, filariasis, or elephantiasis. The mosquito menace has rocked several regions of Asia, Africa and South America, for a long time, and its perfidious effect, aside from that "small, high, hateful bugle in my ear," as D H Lawrence expressed, has returned, somewhat, to rattle certain parts of the developed world, with a vengeance.
Malaria has been a relentless scourge since time immemorial. In ancient Egypt, malaria occurred primarily in lowland areas.
The testimony: enlarged spleens, the organ which is the illness's haven, of some Egyptian mummies. Malaria has claimed several illustrious victims with that tiny bite: Alexander the Great, in June 323 BC; Pope Innocent III in 1216; the great poet-philosopher, Dante Alighieri, in 1321; Raphael, the legendary artist, in 1520; and, Oliver Cromwell, in 1658, not to speak of Martha, George Washington's widow, in 1802, among numerous others, down the ages.
Malaria, a complicated and deadly infection, is actually four illnesses caused by as many related parasites, each having distinctive characteristics: Plasmodium falciparum, P vivax, P ovale and P malariae.
Now the target of intense international effort that employs some of the most advanced techniques available at the frontiers of modern science and medicine, the dizzy illness lingers unabated to claim over a million lives in the tropics alone every year.
What has compounded the problem is ineffectiveness of insecticides, chloroquine's losing battle, including environmental and hygienic anomalies. The point also is - after making significant progress against the parasite in the 1950s and 1960s, the illness got the better of things 'felling' victims in a hundred countries, most of them children. Add to this certain African countries, ravaged by conflict, where 90 per cent of malarial deaths occur, and it makes it all the more difficult to combat the illness. Worse still, some developed nations have trimmed, or cut, their budgets to fight malaria.
Scientists, as 'biting wit' would typify it, have a long way to go in deciphering malaria's complex biology. It isn't known, for instance, why some people living in malarial areas become aggressively ill, while others develop immunity to the illness. It is high time we broke the mould - of competing camps, biased research and skewed mosquito-control plans, with a reorientation of massive screening programmes to collecting data keyed to high-risk groups and potential epidemics on scientific merit, rigorous peer review and supervision.
What delighted scientists, over 25 years ago, was a polymeric vaccine developed by Manuel Patarroyo, the Columbian pathologist and immunologist. The degree of defence was not celebratory, but it was the first time that such a large trial was undertaken with some degree of protection achieved. This marked the touchstone for a futuristic malaria vaccine capable of confronting the parasite at different stages of its life-cycle.
The fact remains that a substantially effective vaccine for malaria is nothing short of a mirage, although one new, exciting development for a malaria vaccine with chattels analogous to the successful RNA-based vaccines for COVID-19 has galvanised things. It's obvious that the malarial parasite, plasmodium, has a protein that blocks the production of T-cells. This prevents our immune system from shielding us against illnesses it has previously run into. The bottom line is simple - if the malaria vaccine can't propel the body to produce T-cells, it would be a fiasco. The new vaccine supposedly evades the protein and immunises us against malaria with good effect. You'd think of it as our next big hope to beating the malarial parasite's impregnable deceptiveness.
Nidamboor is a wellness physician, independent researcher and author
A version of this article appears in the print on June 13, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.