Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by Plasmodium parasites and it is caused when the infected female Anopheles mosquitoes bite a person. In 2020, there were around 241 million cases of malaria worldwide which resulted in 627,000 estimated deaths.
A joint statement was released by the World Health Organisation, the Global Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), and UNICEF on Wednesday in which they informed that the twelve countries across different regions of Africa will receive 18 million doses of the malaria vaccine in a period of 2 years.
You should know that this is the first-ever malaria vaccine (Mosquirix (RTSS) vaccine) to be developed and the credit goes to the British pharmaceutical giant GSK plc. The vaccine has already been administered to more than 1.7 million children in three countries — Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi — as a pilot program and resulted in a “substantial reduction” in severe malaria cases.
The statement reads, “The rollout is a critical step forward in the fight against one of the leading causes of death on the continent." It further added, "The RTS,S/AS01 vaccine has been administered to more than 1.7 million children in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi since 2019 and has been shown to be safe and effective, resulting in a substantial reduction in severe malaria and a fall in child deaths.”
The 12 African countries have shown interest in the new vaccine while the nine new countries set to receive the vaccine are Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.
The joint statement also mentioned, “The allocations have been determined through the application of the principles outlined in the framework for allocation of limited malaria vaccine supply that prioritizes those doses to areas of highest need, where the risk of malaria illness and death among children are highest.”
The African countries experience the largest malaria burden with 95% of cases and around 96% fatalities globally. According to WHO, in 2021, the region reported 234 million malaria cases and 593,000 deaths.
Of these, over 78% of deaths occurred among children under the age of five.
“Malaria remains one of Africa’s deadliest diseases, killing nearly half a million children under the age of five every year,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus informed in a briefing on Wednesday.
According to the World Malaria Report 2022, India experiences 79% of cases and about 83% of all malaria deaths in the Southeast Asia region.
The R21/Matrix-M™ vaccine was initially designed and developed at the University of Oxford and the clinical trials were done in the UK, Thailand, and several African countries for which around 4,800 children had enrolled. Experts expect a drop in cases in India and this vaccine may go a long way in preventing chronic cases.
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