As malaria spreads along with expanding mosquito territory, a new vaccine may help, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Climate change is helping diseases like malaria and dengue fever, usually associated with warmer climates, spread further around the globe. Such dynamics may render a new vaccine against malaria, even though it only prevents a minority of infections, very important. That’s according to Anna Durbin, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins.

Durbin: We’ve already seen local transmission of dengue in Florida and Texas. As the vectors increase in number and geography and expansion, we’re definitely going to see that. We’ve seen expansion in the geography where the dengue vector is, and it’s well above north of Maryland now. So it’s really something that we have to prepare for. We do have the climate that could support malaria here in the area in the mid-Atlantic down to the southern states. Absolutely. :30

Durbin notes that additional vaccines and treatments are being developed for malaria that may be more efficacious. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.