Not mundane. Not pointless.
The world’s first vaccine to help protect against malaria was approved on Friday by European regulators. This is the first ever vaccine against a human parasite.
It is only about 30% effective, but with annual deaths from malaria exceeding 600,000 in recent years this could save thousands of lives and lower transmission rates.
Yeah, science!
And in our usual cynical view, how soon before the anti-vaxxers take aim at this new life saver?
This is huge, and can make a real dent when combined with other eradication methods. IMHO, malaria eradication would be one of mankind’s greatest achievements, up there with going to the moon. This ancient plague has been killing our children and sapping our working people for too long.
Where I lived in Cameroon, if you asked how many children a person had they would count up. Then they would count down those they lost. Every day in school, at least one or two teachers would be out with relapsing malaria, which can just keep you sick forever. It’s time to be rid of it.
I’m so glad they have a vaccine now. My father came back from Viet Nam with malaria, and has had relapses over the course of his life. Horrible disease.
This vaccine was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Awesome to see one of their big picture ideas coming to fruition.
I had malaria and don’t ever want to go through that again, especially since I was back home in the States and went undiagnosed longer than I should have…
The symptoms were just crazy, I actually thought I was dying.
I was very fortunate and only had a few minor relapses afterwards for a year or two.
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I’ve had malaria twice. This vaccine is super exciting news.
I thought I was dying, too, the second time I had it. The first time I had it I was less than four years old, so my family thought I was dying. 
I lost 20 pounds in two weeks the second time. I was 5’5" and 117 pounds, so I didn’t have much to lose - was down to 97 pounds and skinny as a rail. I couldn’t even keep down 7up.
Good news for our Angolan friends. Our stay in Angola has been free of malaria for quite some time using Mefloquine, over the counter bug spray, and mosquito nets.
Regular dosages of G&T also helps. 
Huge news. Even people who take a prophylaxis are susceptible, let alone the general populous who don’t have access to drugs like doxycyclene or mefloquine. We had a diplomat friend who contracted cerebral malaria, which is a killer. He luckily recovered from it. Most aren’t so lucky.
I suspect there will always be a market for the traditional cure.
Yup. I took my mefloquine religiously, but when you are exposed to malarial bites every day, you are eventually going to get a bad roll of the dice.
We were both on a daily dose of doxy and both escaped catching it in the three years we were there. We slept under netting at night, also.
So has Jim Carrey had a hissy twitter-fit about this new vaccine yet