Kintampo (B/A), Dec. 10, GNA - A study has began at the Kintampo Health Research Centre (KHRC) to assess the use of a malaria vaccine given alongside routine vaccines already in use to immunise infants against childhood diseases.

The study, also being conducted in Gabon and Tanzania, is targeting infants aged six to 10 weeks and Ghana is recruiting 170 infants with the consent of the parents.

Dr Seth Owusu-Agyei, Director of the KHRC, told journalists from the African Media and Malaria Research Network on a visit to the centre, that the trial of the RT,S vaccine on infants was to assess whether it would be easy to administer the vaccine during routine child vaccination programmes.

He said it was also to test if the vaccine would interact or mix favourably or otherwise with other vaccines already in use in the expanded programme of immunisation against polio, measles, diphtheria tetanus, hepatitis B and tuberculosis.

The study is part of a phase two trial of the RTS,S malaria vaccine on-going among older children aged five to 17 months in six African countries aimed at assessing the safety of the vaccine, expected for use in Africa in 2011 should it meet all regulatory standards. There are no vaccines to treat malaria infection now and scientists in and outside Africa have embarked on a research into the RTS,S malaria vaccines under the Malaria Clinical Trials Alliance project funded with the 17-million dollar Bill Gates Foundation donation. The RTS,S vaccine has been shown to be safe in trials with adults in the United States, Belgium Kenya as well as in children in Mozambique and Gambia.