The malaria vaccine: seventy years of the great immune hope.

The cluster of seminal microbiological discoveries at the end of the 19th century through to the first quarter of the 20th century gave rise to the expectation that the control of malaria would be by scientific technology (as opposed to the 'brute force' of bonification/massive engeneering works) and that technology would be immunization by a malaria vaccine. Immunology's foundation was in microbiology and the two related disciplines matured concurrently. Immunization with dead or inactivated microorganisms became immunology's strongest arm, affording protection against many major diseases such as smallpox, anthrax, rabies, yellow fever and tetanus.

Serological cross-reactivities between the retroviruses HIV and HTLV-1 and the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.

Serum samples from three populations of Papua New Guinea, where Plasmodium falciparum malaria and human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) are coendemic at high prevalence rates, showed statistically significant ELISA co-seropositivity and co-seronegativity. Cross-reactivity was further indicated by the presence of 10 bands ranging from 134 kDa to 18 kDa on immunoblots of electrophoresed whole lysate P. falciparum antigen against serum of HTLV-1 seropositive patients from an area where malaria is not present.