The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday approved the first malaria vaccine for the first time in history.
It was gathered that the vaccine, Mosquirix could save tens of thousands of lives every year.
WHO experts said, “the real-world test of the jab showed it prevented 30% of severe cases of malaria even in areas with high uptake of other measures, such as bed nets impregnated with insecticide.”
In a statement issued on Wednesday by the global organization, its director-general, Tedros Ghebreyesus the development as a historic moment.
He said, “This is a historic moment. The long-awaited malaria vaccine for children is a breakthrough for science, child health and malaria control. Using this vaccine on top of existing tools to prevent malaria could save tens of thousands of young lives each year.”
Also, WHO recommendation is based on results from an ongoing pilot programme in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi that has reached more than 800,000 children since 2019.
It added that it is recommending widespread use of the vaccine, which it tagged; RTS,S/AS01 (RTS,S) “among children in sub-Saharan Africa and in other regions with moderate to high plasmodium falciparum malaria transmission.”
“Malaria remains a primary cause of childhood illness and death in sub-Saharan Africa. More than 260,000 African children under the age of five die from malaria annually,” WHO said in its statement.
WHO said the key findings of the pilots on the use of the vaccine spanned two years of vaccination in child health clinics in the three pilot countries, implemented under the leadership of the ministries of health of Ghana, Kenya and Malawi.
These findings, WHO listed, include delivery feasibility, saying it improves health and saves lives, “with good and equitable coverage of RTS,S seen through routine immunization systems. This occurred even in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The global body added that the vaccines also increases equity in access to malaria prevention by reaching the unreached, and that data from the pilot programme showed that more than two-thirds of children in the three countries who are not sleeping under a bednet are benefitting from the RTS,S vaccine.
“In areas where the vaccine has been introduced, there has been no decrease in the use of insecticide-treated nets, uptake of other childhood vaccinations or health seeking behavior for febrile illness, and there has been significant reduction (30 per cent) in deadly severe malaria, even when introduced in areas where insecticide-treated nets are widely used and there is good access to diagnosis and treatment,” the statement added.
The global organization also said the vaccine is “highly” cost-effective, noting that; “the 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.”
WHO said the pilot programme had been mobilized through “an unprecedented collaboration among three key global health funding bodies: Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and Unitaid.”
It added that the vaccine is the result of 30 years of research and development by the pharmaceutical giant- GSK, and through a partnership with PATH, with support from a network of African research centres.
