Some 18 million doses of the first RTS,S malaria vaccine will be delivered to 12 African countries by 2025, the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) announced on Wednesday.
“Malaria remains one of the deadliest diseases in Africa, killing nearly half a million children under the age of 5 every year,” WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference.
In 2021, 96% of malaria deaths worldwide occurred in Africa.
The RTS,S vaccine, developed by the British pharmaceutical group GSK, has already been administered to more than 1.7 million children in three African countries: Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, as part of a pilot programme.
“Safe and effective”
“It has been shown to be safe and effective, leading to a substantial reduction in severe forms of malaria and a decrease in child deaths,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Nearly 30 African countries have indicated they want to receive doses.
In addition to the three test countries, which will continue to receive doses, nine other countries will benefit from the doses, the WHO, UNICEF and Gavi said in a statement.
These are Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.
The first vaccines are expected to arrive in the last quarter of 2023, to be implemented in early 2024.
Another vaccine “under review”
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted that a second malaria vaccine, R21/Matrix-M, developed by the University of Oxford and produced by the Serum Institute in India (SII), “is under review for prequalification by the WHO, a procedure to ensure that health products intended for supply to low-income countries are safe and effective.
“It is very important to remember that almost every minute a child dies from malaria, and the introduction of the malaria vaccine is an important step forward” in the fight against the disease, said the director of the department of immunization and vaccines at The OMS. , Kate O’Brien, at a press conference.
This first vaccine “is a step in the right direction and heralds the millions of doses to be distributed in the future,” he said.
The WHO, UNICEF and Gavi estimate that the annual global demand for malaria vaccines is expected to be 40 to 60 million doses by 2026, and then 80 to 100 million doses each year by 2030.
Malaria – a disease that is transmitted to humans through the bite of certain types of mosquitoes – caused the death of 619,000 people worldwide in 2021, according to the latest figures from the WHO.
Source: BFM TV
