Malaria Transmission Blocking Vaccine Candidate in Iran

More than a century after discovery of malaria transmission by Anopheles mosquitoes, it is still important vector born disease. P. vivax is the main cause of malaria in Iran that transmitted in north and south of Iran by different Anopheline vector species. A large reduction in the burden of malaria has recently been achieved in Iran following the scaling up of effective treatment and vector control programmes. These achievements question the need for a partially effective malaria vaccine targeted at disease prevention. Different genes from several parts of the life cycle of Iranian malaria parasites and their Anopheles vectors are already characterized and also have been challenged or are in challenging process. Ookinete secreted protein, PvWARP, is candidate as malaria Transmission Blocking Vaccines (TBVs). Recently, we have tested the mice raised polyclonal anti-PvWARP in field condition by using Anopheles-Plasmodium model. This is the first study on malaria TBV in the country and WHO/EMRO region. The out coming results of this study showed that anti-PvWARP could be useful as regional malaria TBV candidate in assisting malaria elimination program.