Hopes for a vaccine against malaria rose sharply recently following results of a final stage Phase III clinical trial of the compound RTS,S, also known as Mosquirix.

The results were presented at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Malaria Forum conference in Seattle, USA, last week, and published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine. Though the clinical trials, which are being conducted in 11 sites in seven countries across sub-Saharan Africa, are still ongoing, researchers who analysed data from the first 6,000 children found that after 12 months of follow-up, three doses of RTS,S reduced the risk of children experiencing clinical malaria and severe malaria by 56 percent and 47 percent respectively.

Malaria is caused by a parasite carried by mosquitoes. RTS,S is designed in such a way that when the malaria parasite enters the human bloodstream after a mosquito bite, it stimulates an immune response, which can prevent the parasite from maturing and multiplying in the liver. According to the World Health Organisation, malaria is endemic in around 100 countries worldwide, and killed some 781,000 people in 2009 alone. A vaccine against malaria will therefore be a huge weapon in the current campaign against malaria-induced deaths.

The enthusiastic response to the news is therefore understandable. Groups and individuals, who have committed enormous time and resources in the campaign against malaria such as the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) and the Bill & Belinda Gates Foundation's Malaria Forum, deserve commendation. As does Dr Joe Cohen, a molecular biologist, who was the original patent holder and one of the inventors of RTS,S. Dr Cohen, who is currently the vice-President, R&D Emerging Diseases and HIV at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), joined the pharmaceutical giant in 1984 and took over the leadership of the company's malaria vaccine programme three years later. He invented the RTS,S vaccine, based on a protein first identified in the laboratory of Drs Ruth and Victor Nussenzweig at New York University. In 2001, the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) entered into partnership with GSK to study the candidate vaccine's ability to protect young children in sub-Saharan Africa.

However, it is important that any celebration of this apparent breakthrough be tempered by certain caveats. The vaccine, even if it makes it to the market by 2015 as is currently projected, will not be a quick fix for the malaria scourge in Africa. For instance, the new shot is less effective against malaria than other vaccines against other common infections such as polio or measles. Generally, health experts like to see a success rate of over 80 percent in a vaccine. The success rate of RTS,S is barely 50 per cent. This means essentially that while the candidate vaccine is undoubtedly a giant stride in the war against malaria, it would at best be only one of the tools for controlling the disease. This will in itself raise a challenge of how it could be integrated into the current strategy for fighting the scourge. Most African governments have not been especially good in managing the impact of new interventions on the re-allocation of resources, leading, as happened in the case of HIV drugs, to a reliance on international funders and its consequent reinforcement of the image of Africa as a beggarly continent.

African governments should seek closer involvement in the ongoing clinical trials of RTS,S and its subsequent development into a vaccine with a view to negotiating the rights for the production of inexpensive generics so that the cost will be affordable to those who need it. More importantly, the relative success of this new candidate vaccine should be a wakeup call to African governments about the need to do more to encourage research and development. The continent certainly does not lack skilled scientists and technologists able to make innovative inventions or breakthroughs that will help in alleviating the many challenges confronting the continent. There is no reason why the task of finding a vaccine for an ailment that is mostly endemic on the continent should once again fall on the shoulders of outsiders. All the talks about re-branding in some countries such as Nigeria will continue to be meaningless for as long as we continue to wait upon others to find the solutions to problems that are local to Africa.