Late-stage clinical trials of what could become the world's first anti-malaria vaccine successfully protected a significant percentage of infants and young children in sub-Saharan Africa from contracting malaria up to 18 months after vaccination, leading drug company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to announce on Tuesday that it will apply for regulatory approval of the vaccine next year.

GSK partnered with research centers in seven African countries and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), a non-profit that's funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to test its malaria vaccine, called RTS,S.

They vaccinated nearly 15,000 infants and children in Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania, and after following up 18 months later, the research teams found that cases of malaria had decreased by nearly one-half in children who were vaccinated when they were between ages 5 to 17 months old. Among infants who were between 6 to 12 weeks old when they were vaccinated, malaria cases decreased by about one-quarter, according to the researchers, who presented their data at a conference in South Africa.

"While we have seen some decline in vaccine efficacy over time, the sheer number of children affected by malaria means that the number of cases of the disease the vaccine can help prevent is impressive," said Sir Andrew Witty, the chief executive officer of GSK, in a release. "These data support our decision to submit a regulatory application for the vaccine candidate which, if successful, would bring us a step closer to having an additional tool to fight this deadly disease."