A decades-long USAID–Army partnership that helped develop malaria vaccines was terminated, halting progress on a promising next-generation candidate.
For more than three decades, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) partnered with USAID through an interagency agreement to support malaria vaccine development, until the agreement was ended in 2025. This collaboration played a pivotal role in advancing promising vaccine candidates from early discovery through early clinical testing, including the world's first approved malaria vaccine (RTS,S) now used in childhood immunization programs in parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
This partnership supported foundational work, such as selecting vaccine targets, designing and manufacturing candidates, and running early-safety studies—enabling progress on next-generation vaccines with potential to improve upon existing vaccine options which are partially effective and for children only. When the USAID stop work ordered occurred in January 2025, WRAIR was manufacturing a promising second-generation circumsporozoite protein vaccine (the same type as today’s vaccines) using a novel nanoparticle platform designed to generate a strong immune response and to be produced more cost-effectively. This termination halted this work midstream, stalling advancement toward a Phase 1 clinical trial. While WRAIR secured limited internal funding to finish manufacturing already in progress, there is no longer a clear pathway to advance the candidate into human testing, and broader malaria vaccine development at WRAIR is longer meaningfully progressing.
The impact extends beyond this single candidate. USAID had become the cornerstone, and effectively the sole remaining source, of support for WRAIR's malaria vaccine development efforts, following an earlier Defense Department decision to deprioritize funding. With USAID funding eliminated and other federal funding avenues closed, the program has already laid off contractors and expects further personnel reductions, eroding specialized expertise built over years. Malaria remains a significant threat to US military personnel deployed oversees and to global security, and could increasingly pose risks to Americans in the United States as climate patterns change, making this work relevant to US preparedness, force readiness, and global health.