Dirk Werling, of the Royal Veterinary College (photo credit: RVC).
South Africa’s first 24-hour television news channel, eNCA, has broadcast a 2-minute film that describes how the disease East Coast fever affects cattle in Africa and how research to develop a new-generation vaccine against it may hold promise for research on the human ailments of malaria and cancer.
The laboratories where the new vaccine is being researched, at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya, are shown and ILRI scientist Vish Nene, head of the project, is interviewed, along with one of the project’s partners, Dirk Werling, of the Royal Veterinary College, in the UK.
‘Research into cancer and malaria could see a massive breakthrough — all because of a vaccine project against East Coast Fever.
‘Researchers believe that by understanding how the East Coast Fever parasite multiplies a model can be developed to understand how cancer and malaria cells proliferate.
‘East Coast Fever kills one head of cattle every 30 seconds and one million cattle every year.
‘The disease is prevalent only in Sub-Saharan Africa and threatens 28-million beasts.’
Watch the 2-minute video news from eNews Channel Africa (eNCA): Possible breakthrough in malaria and cancer research, 4 Apr 2014.
ILVAC 
As a member of the ECF consortium working with the vaccine, I want to come with a correction to the 2 min video news from eNews Channel Africa. We are not promising a vaccine in 4 years but a proof-of-concept with one strain in a restricted set of MHC haplotypes under lab conditions.