NMRC Begins Human Malaria Vaccine Trials

Researchers from the Naval Medical Research Center in Silver Spring, Md., have begun testing 12 volunteers with an experimental malaria vaccine. The volunteers are active duty service members, military retirees or family members. After receiving the vaccine, each volunteer will allow five infected mosquitoes to feed on an arm. If the vaccine fails because blood tests verify malaria, the volunteers will be treated with chloroquine, a safe drug with a 100 percent success rate against malaria. The deadly mosquito-borne infection kills more than one million inadequately treated people annually. The last death in the U.S. military occurred in 2002 when an Army Special Forces soldier died following a mission to Nigeria. In August 2003, a Marine Corps deployment to Liberia was aborted when 44 percent of the members of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit spending nights at the Monrovia airport contracted malaria.