Malaria, a mosquito-borne infection, is the most widespread
parasitic disease. Despite numerous efforts to eradicate malaria, this
disease is still a health concern worldwide. Owing to
insecticide-resistant vectors and drug-resistant parasites, available
controlling measures are insufficient to achieve a malaria-free world.
Thus, there is an urgent need for new intervention tools such as
efficient malaria vaccines. Subunit vaccines are the most promising
malaria vaccines under development. However, one of the major drawbacks
of subunit vaccines is the lack of efficient and durable immune
responses including antigen-specific antibody, CD4+, and CD8+
T-cell responses, long-lived plasma cells, memory cells, and functional
antibodies for parasite neutralization or inhibition of parasite
invasion. These types of responses could be induced by whole organism
vaccines, but eliciting these responses with subunit vaccines has been
proven to be more challenging. Consequently, subunit vaccines require
several policies to overcome these challenges. In this review, we
address common approaches that can improve the efficacy of subunit
vaccines against malaria.