#EndMalaria: First large-scale malaria vaccine to be tested in 3 African countries
The World Health Organisation on Monday said that Kenya, Ghana and Malawi will take part in a pilot implementation programme that will make the world’s first malaria vaccine available in selected arrears.
The injectable vaccine, known as RTS,S, was developed by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline to protect young children in Africa. 360,000 children are to be vaccinated between 2018 and 2020.
The malaria vaccine will be administered through intramuscular injection and will be delivered through the routine national immunization programmes, WHO reports.
RTS,S is the first malaria vaccine to have obtained a positive scientific opinion from a stringent medicines regulatory authority, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which approved RTS,S in July 2015.
It passed previous scientific testing — including a phase three clinical trial between 2009 and 2014 — and was approved for the pilot programme in 2015.
While RTS,S does not promise full protection against malaria, it is the most effective potential vaccine so far developed reducing the number of hospitalisation and blood transfusions, AFP reports.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa said that while the dream is “a vaccine that replaces everything”, insecticide-treated bed nets remain the most effective protection against malaria, which remain, “at the moment, our strongest preventive weapon”.
Kenya, Ghana and Malawi were selected to participate in the pilot based on high coverage of long-lasting insecticidal-treated nets (LLINs), a high malaria burden even after scale-up of LLINs, and participation in the Phase III RTS,S malaria vaccine trial.
Malaria kills around 430,000 people a year, the vast majority of them babies and young children in sub-Saharan Africa.Global efforts in the last 15 years cut the malaria death toll by 62 percent between 2000 and 2015, this according to Reuters.
CGTN’s Clementine Logan has been following those developments and explains to Lindy Mtongana on the significance of this vaccine trial for Africa as well as how the vaccine works and its chances during this trial period.
