ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the limits of the concept of a colonial "laboratory" and of transnational circulations of medical knowledge. SPf66 was produced by the Colombian scientist Manuel Elkin Patarroyo working at the Instituto National de Inmunologia in Bogota. It was the first product in a series of malaria vaccines that has been synthesised chemically rather than made from genetically altered or dead pathogen. The primary objective of the first Phase III trial with SPf66 outside Latin America was to determine the efficacy of the vaccine in preventing malaria episodes in a hyperendemic area, highly representative of large parts of Africa. On 9 October 1994, the principal investigators and their collaborators published the data from the Idete trial in the Lancet. While they reported that the SPf66 vaccine 'reduces the risk of malaria among children highly exposed to natural infection', the estimated efficacy of 31% warranted only cautious optimism.
