Obstacles to the development of a safe and effective attenuated pre-erythrocytic stage malaria vaccine

Attenuated pre-erythrocytic stage malaria vaccines protect humans from sporozoite challenge. Current technology limits the feasibility of their commercial scale production and poses a significant risk of contamination with transmissible agents. Overcoming these barriers will be very challenging. In contrast, subunit vaccines appear quite feasible and show great promise as candidate malaria vaccines.