No: BAM2022-006
Bamako, Mali, November 29, 2022
The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) annual in-person conference, which was paused for the past two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, was held from 30 October to 3 November 2022. Therefore, the 2022 conference was highly anticipated by scientists around the world. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) facilitated the participation of 45 Malian scientists at this year’s conference in Seattle, Washington from October 30 to November 3, 2022. All participating Malian scientists had the opportunity to present their research findings as well as posters or talks.
The team of Prof. Boubacar Traore, the Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako, also part of the Malaria and Research Training Center, received acknowledgement of their work by several media outlets across the United States and abroad, including the Washington Post, AP, Science, MedPage Today, to name a few. The attention was driven by the results that Prof. Kassoum Kayentao presented at ASTMH and published in the New England Journal of Medicine on October 31, 2022. The study demonstrated that the experimental monoclonal antibody drug, CIS43LS, proved up to 88 percent effective in preventing malaria infections in healthy adults in Kalifabougou and Torodo, Mali. This was the first study to show that a monoclonal antibody can prevent malaria infection in an endemic region and provides hope that monoclonal antibodies could be part of the malaria-fighting tools available to the world to combat this disease that continues to kill people in Mali and other countries predominantly in Africa.
“We are very proud of our National Institutes of Health’s partnership with the University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako (USTTB). USTTB’s Prof. Boubacar Traore, the Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy and his team, who are part of the Malaria and Research Training Center, conduct malaria research studies that have the potential to save lives not only in Mali, but throughout Africa and around the world. We laud Prof. Kassoum Kayentao’s research findings, recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showing a monoclonal antibody drug is up to 88 percent effective against malaria infections, as seen in Kalifabougou and Torodo, Mali. Bravo to these scientists!”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/31/malaria-prevention-drug/
