The Malaria Vaccine Is a Big Deal, but Not a Silver Bullet

When Patrick Duffy started his career at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in 1991, scientists were already a few years into testing a first-of-its-kind vaccine that would protect against malaria. Thirty years later, the World Health Organization has finally recommended the product of that research as a malaria intervention for children under age 5 in Africa. The RTS,S vaccine, also called Mosquirix, is the first vaccine to protect against a parasite.

Duffy, now the chief of the Laboratory of Malaria Immunology and Vaccinology at the National Institute of Allergy and...