 Now, a potential new malaria vaccine has proved highly effective in a trial in babies in Africa. Pointing to it, one day possibly helping to reduce the death toll from the mosquito-borne disease that kills up to half a million young children in a year. Scientists around the world have been working for decades to develop a vaccine to prevent the deadly disease malaria. They may have finally had a breakthrough. A shot has been developed by a team of scientists, directed by one of the lead researchers behind the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. And it is proving highly effective in a trial in babies in Africa. The complex infection caused by a parasite carried in the saliva of mosquitoes kills up to half a million young children a year. Researchers say the candidate vaccine has shown up to 77 percent efficacy in a year-long trial of 450 children in Bikina Faso. The world's first and only licensed malaria vaccine, developed by GlaxoSmithKline, is only partially effective at around 30 percent. The team now plans to conduct final stage trials in some 4,800 children in four African countries.