Yes this is a BFD

 And it comes with a good wisecrack from Matthew Yglesias. 

 

"Terrible news for the people of Africa, who must now face the oppression and lost liberty that comes with vaccine development."

 

Malaria kills more than 260,000 African children every year (I wonder if the Right to Life movement has noticed this?) and about as many adults. It also chronically debilitates many adults and does immense economic harm. Treatment resistant strains are a growing problem.

 

The vaccine is perhaps not as highly effective as we would hope but it makes a big difference.

 

• Strong safety profile: To date, more than 2.3 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in 3 African countries – the vaccine has a favorable safety profile. 
  
• No negative impact on uptake of bednets, other childhood vaccinations, or health seeking behavior for febrile illness. In areas where the vaccine has been introduced, there has been no decrease in the use of insecticide-treated nets, uptake of other childhood vaccinations or health seeking behavior for febrile illness.
  
• High impact in real-life childhood vaccination settings: Significant reduction (30%) in deadly severe malaria, even when introduced in areas where insecticide-treated nets are widely used and there is good access to diagnosis and treatment.
  
• Highly cost-effective: Modelling estimates that the vaccine is cost effective in areas of moderate to high malaria transmission. 

Trials are underway to determine the effectiveness of a 4th dose so there might even be better news. We can also hope that what parasitologists learn from this will lead to development of even more effective vaccines -- this is the first ever vaccine against a metazoan parasite. With a highly effective vaccine, malaria could actually be eradicated since it has no non-human reservoir.

 

The anti-vax people are truly insane.