A pharmaceutical company has revealed that the first ever malaria vaccine could be in widespread use by 2015, after getting "significant" results from an ongoing clinical trial.
Researchers have reported at a malaria conference in Durban, South Africa, that the injection continues to protect a considerable proportion of babies and young children, after 18 months of being given the vaccination, Sky News reported.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which makes the vaccine, has said that it is going to apply for a license from the European Medicines Agency in 2014, while World Health Organisation aims to support the use of the vaccine, if it proves to be safe and effective.
GSK has promised to sell the vaccine, code name RTS,S, at 5 percent more than the cost price, so that the fund could help in further research of tropical diseases.
The latest results, which were done on 15,000 babies and children in seven African countries, show that are far from perfect, but still offers major protection.
According to the study, young children were 46 percent less likely to suffer clinical malaria, eighteen months after a three-dose vaccination programme.
The results also show that 21 cases of severe malaria were prevented out of the 1,000 children vaccinated, but the vaccine was less effective in babies, and infants who had the jabs when they were just a few weeks old were 27 percent less likely to suffer from the disease.
Scientists are now investigating the possibility of a booster dose that can increase protection in the longer term.
