Current Status Of Malaria Vaccinology Essay -- essays research papers

Current Status of Malaria VaccinologyIn clubhouse to assess the veritable status of malaria vaccinology one must first takean overview of the unit of measurement of the whole unsoundness. One must understand the diseaseand its enormity on a global basis.Malaria is a protozoan disease of which over 150 zillion cases are reported perannum. In tropical Africa alone more than 1 million children under the age offourteen die each stratum from Malaria. From these figures it is easy to see thateradication of this disease is of the utmost importance.The disease is caused by one of four species of Plasmodium These four are P.falciparium, P .malariae, P .vivax and P .ovale. Malaria does not only effecthumans, but can overly infect a variety of hosts ranging from reptiles to monkeys.It is therefore necessary to look at all the aspects in order to assess thepossibility of a vaccine.The disease has a long and complex life cycle which creates problems forimmunologists. The vector for Malari a is the Anophels Mosquito in which the lifecycle of Malaria both begins and ends. The parasitic protozoan enters thebloodstream via the confidence game of an infected female mosquito. During her feeding she send outs a small amount of anticoagulant and haploid sporozoites along withsaliva. The sporozoites head directly for the liverwort cells of the liver wherethey breed by asexual fission to lay down merozoites. These merozoites can now perish one of two paths. They can go to infect more hepatic liver cells or theycan attach to and penetrate erytherocytes. When inside the erythrocytes themalaria parasite enlarges into uninucleated cells called trophozites The nucleus ofthis newly formed cell then divides asexually to produce a schizont, which has6-24 nuclei.Now the multinucleated schizont then divides to produce mononucleated merozoites. Eventually the erythrocytes contributees lysis and as chair the merozoites enterthe bloodstream and infect more erythrocytes. This cycle r epeats itself every48-72 hours (depending on the species of plasmodium involved in the originalinfection) The sudden release of merozoites toxins and erythrocytes debris iswhat causes the fever and chills associated with Malaria.Of course the disease must be able to transmit itself for survival. This is doneat the erythrocytic stage of the life cycle. Occasionally merozoitesdifferentiate into macrogametocytes and microgametocyt... ...ereas the dominate wisdom required T cells aswell in order to achieve protective immunity.Sceptics also pounced on the elaborate and painstaking abut of eliminationPatarroyo used to find the right peptides. He took 22 "immunologically arouse" proteins from the malaria parrasite, which he identified usingantibodies from people immune to malaria, and injected these antigens intomonkeys and eventually put together four that provided around immunity to malaria. Hethen sequenced these four antigens and theorise dozens of short fragmentsof them . Again using monkeys (more than a thousand) he tried and true these peptidesindividually and in combination until he hit on what he considered to be thejackpot vaccine. But the WHO a 31% rate to be in the grey area and so there isstill no decision on its use.In conclusion it is obvious that malaria is proving a knotty disease toestablish an effective and cheap vaccine for in that some tests and inconclusiveand others while they seem to work do not reach a high enough standard. Buthaving said that I anticipate that a viable vaccine will present itself in the get alongfuture (with a little help from the scientific world of course).