World Health Organisation (WHO) says more than 2.3 million doses of the historic RTS,S/AS01 (RTS,S) malaria vaccine have been administered in three African countries.
The groundbreaking vaccine has been administered to over 800,000 children since 2019 in an ongoing pilot programme in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi.
WHO has recommended widespread use of the vaccine among children in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions with moderate to high P. falciparum malaria transmission.
The P falciparum parasite specie of malaria causes the majority of infections in Africa and is responsible for the most severe forms of the disease.
‘This is a historic moment. The long-awaited malaria vaccine for children is a breakthrough for science, child health and malaria control’, WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement.
‘Using this vaccine on top of existing tools to prevent malaria could save tens of thousands of young lives each year’.
According to WHO, P. falciparum accounted for 99.7 percent of estimated malaria cases in Africa in 2018.
In 2019, six African countries – Nigeria (23 percent), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (11 percent), Tanzania (five percent), Burkina Faso (four percent), Mozambique (four percent) and Niger (four percent) – accounted for approximately half of all malaria deaths worldwide
‘We have long hoped for an effective malaria vaccine and now, for the first time ever, we have such a vaccine recommended for widespread use’, WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, said.
The RTS,S malaria vaccine is the result of 30 years of research and development by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) through a partnership with PATH and support from a network of African research centres.
An innovative financing agreement between GAVI, MedAccess and GSK is expected to guarantee continued production of the RTS,S antigen for the malaria vaccine.
‘Next steps for the WHO-recommended malaria vaccine will include funding decisions from the global health community for broader rollout, and country decision-making on whether to adopt the vaccine as part of national malaria control strategies’, the statement added.
Sources: WHO, Global Fund
Photo source: Fabien Beilhe
