When most of us think of mosquitoes, we think of two things: annoying itchy bites, and malaria-spreading. Neither of which are very pleasant. Scientists in Europe may have have found a way to take advantage of these little blood suckers' ability to 'get around' - they've conducting an experiment in which they used mosquitoes to deliver a malaria vaccine. And it seemed to work!

All volunteers who were given the vaccine acquired immunity to malaria; everyone in the non-vaccinated comparison group developed malaria when later exposed to infected mosquitoes.

How it all went down:

"Scientists tried to take advantage of these two factors, by using chloroquine to protect people while gradually exposing them to malaria parasites and letting immunity develop.

They assigned 10 volunteers to a "vaccine" group and five others to a comparison group. All were given chloroquine for three months, and exposed once a month to about a dozen mosquitoes - malaria-infected ones in the vaccine group and non-infected mosquitoes in the comparison group.

That was to allow the "vaccine" effect to develop. Next came a test to see if it was working.

All 15 stopped taking chloroquine. Two months later, all were bitten by malaria-infected mosquitoes. None of the 10 in the vaccine group developed parasites in their bloodstreams; all five in the comparison group did."

Although this kind of an experiment just wouldn't fly on a larger scale, it is still quite beneficial in helping scientists understand which vaccines may be the most effective in trying to stop one of the most deadly diseases of our time.

"This is not a vaccine" as in a commercial product, but a way to show how whole parasites can be used like a vaccine to protect against disease, said one of the Dutch researchers, Dr. Robert Sauerwein.

Malaria kills a child every 30 seconds. Each year, nearly a million people die from malaria, most of them under 5 years old, primarily but not exclusively in Africa. Infected mosquitoes inject immature malaria parasites into the skin when they bite; these travel to the liver where they mature and multiply. From there, they enter the bloodstream and attack red blood cells - the phase that makes people sick.

Until a working vaccine is available to the public, you can do your part to prevent the spread of malaria by choosing Children for Children as your Cause on SocialVibe. The money raised will be used to buy insecticide-treated bed nets for children in Africa. To date, SocialVibe members have raised over $3,700, and no one had to pay a dime. Click here to get started.