6:30 am on the clock as the sun rises over the Indian ocean, a dozen or so small fishing boats set sail at the Tanzanian coastal town of Bogamoyo.
It means "Leave your heart here", for Bogamoyo used to be East Africa's biggest slave market.
The fishing boats are tiny, carved from a single tree trunk, so each day in the sea for the local fisherman is an episode of survival.
And the rough sea is not the only danger. When the men come with their catch back to their villages, they are faced with an even greater threat: malaria. The rate of this highly debilitating disease went as high as 80% at one point. Now it's down to 10%, and I'm here as part of a crew for PBS's Newshour with Jim Lehrer to figure out how they did it.
And this is how...
Malaria is caused by a tiny parasite that is passed from a sick person to a healthy one by mosquitoes. Once entered the human body it starts to reproduce, paralyzing the liver, causing terrible headaches and high fever - the reason for most fatalities. Medicine helps, if administered quickly, but most of the Tanzanians have little access to the health system and died before they could get the treatment.
Now however, after 17 years in development, a research center in Bogamoyo is entering the third, last faze in the malaria vaccine research - the human testing. We've witnessed 20 women bringing their babies (5 months to 2 years old) for a vaccine shot. They needed little convincing: one of them lost three kids to the fatal disease. The vaccine is only 50% effective but even that will most certainly save thousands, perhaps millions of lives.
A seldom piece of good news in this poor east african country.
Denis Levkovich - from Bogamoyo, Tanzania
