The Associated Press
	Researchers have discovered a possible new way to vaccinate 
against malaria, which kills up to 3 million people a year and 
sickens an additional 300 million.
	Creating a vaccine is crucial because the parasite has 
begun developing resistance to drugs used to treat malaria, and 
even mosquitos that spread the disease are withstanding 
pesticides.
	But finding a malaria vaccine has proved exceptionally 
difficult, and testing in 1997 concluded the candidate long 
thought the best hope was actually worthless.
	The reason most vaccine attempts have failed is that they 
focused on one part of the malaria parasite's complex life cycle.
	But researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention and from India have created a multipronged vaccine 
designed to make the immune system fight the parasite at many 
stages: When the mosquito bite sends it into the body, when it 
invades the liver and when infection moves into the bloodstream.
	Rabbits immunized with the new vaccine produced antibodies 
that prevented malaria parasites from invading liver cells and 
from replicating in the blood, the researchers reported in 
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
	Just because the vaccine stimulates a rabbit's immune 
system doesn't mean it would work in people, cautioned 
parasitologist Anthony Holder of London's National Institute for 
Medical Research.
	The CDC hopes further testing in primates will prove 
promising enough to try the vaccine in people.