Introduction
illness, death, Malaria, human parasitic disease
INFECTIOUS DISEASES, MALARIA
Malaria is one of the oldest human parasitic disease that remains, to date, a major cause of childhood illness and death in sub-Saharan Africa (Vaccines are one of the most cost-effective and powerful tools for controlling, eliminating, and eradicating infectious diseases. In October 2021, WHO recommended that the RTS,S vaccine be used for the prevention of Unlike the progress in pre-erythrocytic vaccines, advancement in erythrocytic or blood-stage vaccines has been slow and challenging. These vaccines target the highly regulated process of parasite egress and invasion, when a large number of merozoites on a very short time frame are freely available outside the red blood cells. Several blood-stage antigens have reached clinical development, but trials have faltered because of limited efficacy, partly due to antigenic diversity/polymorphism, involvement of functionally redundant pathways, and some safety concerns: erythrocyte-binding antigen-175 (EBA-175), apical membrane antigen-1 (AMA-1), glutamate-rich protein (GLURP), and merozoite surface proteins (MSPs) (The In non-human primate studies, synthetic oligonucleotides (ODN) containing unmethylated cytosine guanine dinucleotide (CpG) motifs on a phosphorothioate backbone selectively promoted cellular and humoral immune responses (Among the TLR9 ligands tested as adjuvant (