Sterile protection and transmission blockade by a multistage anti-malarial vaccine in the pre-clinical study.

The Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap 2013 (World Health Organization) aims to develop safe and effective vaccines by 2030 that will offer at least 75% protective efficacy against clinical malaria and reduce parasite transmission. Here, we demonstrate a highly effective multistage vaccine against both the pre-erythrocytic and sexual stages of that protects and reduces transmission in a murine model. The vaccine is based on a viral-vectored vaccine platform, comprising a highly-attenuated vaccinia virus strain, LC16m8Δ (m8Δ), a genetically stable variant of a licensed and highly effective Japanese smallpox vaccine LC16m8, and an adeno-associated virus (AAV), a viral vector for human gene therapy.