"A single dose of an antibody drug provided strong protection against malaria infections during the six-month rainy season in Mali, an international team of researchers announced Monday. The promising result, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, lays the groundwork for a new tool to help defeat a parasitic disease that last year killed more than 600,000 people — mostly children.
The experimental drug, CIS43LS, proved 88 percent effective in preventing malaria infections in healthy adults — a tantalizing proof of principle that such an approach could have a powerful impact.
“This is extremely good, particularly when considering that the study was implemented in an area of intense seasonal transmission,” Umberto D’Alessandro, a malaria expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine based in Gambia, said in an email. He was not involved in the study."
Carolyn Y. Johnson reports for the Washington Post October 31, 2022.
