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Scientists may have found an effective vaccine that can protect people from multiple strains of malaria.

Malaria, a deadly disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected mosquitoes, kills over 600,000 people every year. 

Past research on the development of vaccines have mainly focused on targeting specific parasite antigens.  However, researchers said that many of these vaccines have failed because the antigen targets are highly variable.

Based on the observation that low-density infections can induce antibody-independent immunity to different malaria strains, lead researcher Michael Good and colleagues at Griffith University in Australia were able to create a vaccine using blood-stage malaria parasites that were attenuated with a chemical agent that keeps the parasite from multiplying.

Good and his team found that mice vaccinated with a single species of attenuated parasite displayed immunity to multiple malaria species for over 100 days.

Researchers say the latest study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, suggests that vaccination with chemically attenuated parasites provides protective immunity and suggest that such vaccines could be used to target human malaria species.