[Malaria vaccines, a necessity for future control of malaria. Status and future perspectives]

Traditional malaria control is in a crisis on account of chemo-resistance of Plasmodium falciparum and insecticide-resistance of the malaria mosquito. New ways to control malaria have been opened by the possibility of producing a vaccine. Several malaria proteins (e.g. CSP, gp195, Pf155/RESA, GLURP) have been sequenced and it has been shown that most of the proteins have repetitive units. Analyses of T- and B-cell epitopes show that T-cell epitopes are mainly localized to the non-conserved parts of the antigens. Repeated malaria infections, therefore, may be seen as a number of primary infections, which partly explains the very slow development of immunity to the parasite. The initial three vaccination experiments in humans did not succeed in inducing a complete protection of the individual but it showed that partial immunization is possible.