Malaria jabs set for broader rollout in Africa

Cameroon (AFP): The United Nations heralded Wednesday the forthcoming scale-up of malaria vaccination across Africa after a first shipment of doses arrived in Cameroon.

Since 2019, more than two million children have been jabbed in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi in a pilot phase, resulting in substantial reductions in severe malaria illness and hospitalisations.

Now the scheme is moving into broader rollout, with 331,200 doses of RTS,S — the first malaria vaccine recommended by the UN’s World Health Organization — landing Tuesday in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde.

The delivery “signals that scale-up of vaccination against malaria across the highest-risk areas on the African continent will begin shortly”, the WHO, the UN children’s agency UNICEF and the Gavi vaccine alliance said in a joint statement.

They called it “a historic step towards broader vaccination against one of the deadliest diseases for African children”.

A further 1.7 million doses are set for delivery to Burkina Faso, Liberia, Niger and Sierra Leone in the coming weeks.

Several African countries are finalising preparations for malaria vaccine introduction into routine immunisation programmes, with the first doses set to be administered in January-March 2024.

Africa accounted for approximately 95 percent of global malaria cases and 96 percent of related deaths from the mosquito-borne disease in 2021.

Global malaria deaths dipped slightly to 619,000 in 2021 — of which 77 percent were children aged under five. Meanwhile, global malaria cases rose slightly to 247 million.

The RTS,S vaccine acts against plasmodium falciparum — the most deadly malaria parasite globally and the most prevalent in Africa.

It is administered in a four-dose schedule which begins at around the age of five months old.

“Broad implementation of malaria vaccination in endemic regions has the potential to be a game-changer for malaria control efforts, and could save tens of thousands of lives each year,” the joint statement said.

The doses are donated by manufacturer GSK.