Vaccine Delivered Mosquitos Carries Malaria-Causing Parasite That Infects Human Blood Cells
The bizarre experiment details were published last month in the peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
The study was conducted by researchers at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) in Leiden, Netherlands.
The same month the study was published, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave $2,287,871 to LUMC to develop “next generation malaria vaccine candidates,” according to the Foundation’s website.
This was in addition to the $1,578,317 given by Gates to LUMC in September 2023 “to understand population and geographic factors affecting response to malaria vaccines in endemic countries.”
The study authors write: “We conducted a double-blind, controlled clinical trial to evaluate the safety, side-effect profile, and efficacy of immunization, by means of mosquito bites, with a second-generation genetically attenuated parasite (GA2) — a mei2 single knockout P. falciparum NF54 parasite (sporozoite form) with extended development into the liver stage.”
The Plasmodium falciparum (P. falciparum) parasite causes malaria in humans.