The Push for a Malaria Vaccine

Abstract

Why is there a push to develop a vaccine for malaria? A consideration of the Australian-Papua New Guinea collaboration in developing a malaria vaccine shows the seeming inevitability of the development of a successful vaccine to be the consequence of a complex of technical, social, economic and political factors. They include: the importance of a laboratory-based approach to dealing with malaria; the economic circumstance of vaccine production; the problems concerning the specificity and variability of malaria; and the significance of the socio-political situation in Papua New Guinea for medical research. The combination of these factors makes the development of a vaccine extremely problematic, and more likely to benefit tourists and the military than the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea.