Glaxo SmithKline has developed malaria vaccine which, according to the company, is capable of reducing the effect of malaria in the world.

CEOAFRICA.com gathered that the British drug maker now seek regulatory approval for the vaccine after trial data indicated that it had cut the number of cases in African children.

Malaria, a mosquito-borne parasitic disease, kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide every year. Scientists say an effective vaccine is key to attempts to eradicate it.

RTS,S is the vaccine developed by Glaxo SmithKline with the non-profit path Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), supported by funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Speaking about the vaccine, Halidou Tinto, a lead investigator on the RST,S trial from Burkina Faso spoke about the efficiency of the vaccine.

"Many millions of malaria cases fill the wards of our hospitals. Progress is being made with bed nets and other measures, but we need more tools to battle this terrible disease," he said.

The malaria trial was Africa's largest-ever clinical trial involving almost 15,500 children in seven countries.

The findings were presented at a medical meeting in Durban, South Africa.

"Based on these data, GSK now intends to submit, in 2014, a regulatory application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA)," GSK said in a statement.

The statement said that the hope now is that the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO) may recommend the use of the RTS,S vaccine from as early as 2015 if EMA drugs regulators back its licence application.

Our source disclosed that the testing showed that 18 months after vaccination, children aged five to 17 months had a 46% reduction in the risk of clinical malaria compared to unvaccinated contemporaries.

But in infants aged six to 12 weeks at the time of vaccination, there was only a 27% reduction in risk.