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There is a key sentence of this article that speaks to this:

> This new vaccine (R21) uses a circumsporozoite protein (CSP) antigen – that’s a highly conserved protein of the parasite, involved in several functions as the parasite makes the move from mosquito to human and into different human tissues such as the salivary glands.

Circumsporozoite protein is a highly conserved protein meaning that it is a genetic sequence that is very unlikely to change regardless of adaptive/evolutionary pressure.



I see. So the 23% does not suggest that, e.g. there's some minority of parasites that are "immune" already.


Not necessarily - vaccine effectiveness also relies on the person's immune system actually developing the needed antibodies. Some fraction of people simply won't. This is also why vaccine effectiveness goes up with multiple doses - sometimes the first one doesn't take but the second one does.




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