Immune Escape Mechanisms are Plasmodium's Secret Weapons Foiling the Success of Potent and Persistently Efficacious Malaria Vaccines.

Despite decades of active research, an efficacious vaccine mediating long-term protection is still not available. This review highlights various mechanisms and the different facets by which the parasites outsmart the immune system. An understanding of how the parasites escape immune recognition and interfere with the induction of a protective immune response that provides sterilizing immunity will be crucial to vaccine design.