Africa is set to begin talks with the World Health Organization about getting a supply of the first malaria vaccine approved by the organization. The WHO’s recommendation that the drug should be given first to children in Africa was welcomed by experts, who said it could help save the lives of millions of kids.
The head of Africa’s CDC, John Nkengasong, said on Friday that he would be talking to officials from the WHO and GAVI about the availability of a vaccine for children. He urged donors to avoid a zero-sum game “where we fund COVID vaccines and neglect malaria vaccines.”
GlaxoSmithKline, the British drugmaker that made the malaria vaccine called Mosquirix, committed to producing up to 15 million doses of the vaccine annually up to 2028. The company’s goal is to maintain a 5% margin.
Nkengasong noted that the WHO’s recommendation to use the malaria vaccine is a victory for Africa, as it will help decrease the number of people who die from the illness each year.
Thirty years of development have gone into making Mosquirix. Through a pilot program, the vaccine has been administered to 2.3 million people in 3 African countries.
The World Health Organization officially recognized the use of the first vaccine against malaria as a lifesaver for children in Sub-Saharan Africa. The vaccine is the first to effectively fight the illness in humans.
Before international aid came to Africa, it was estimated that around a million children in the country had died from the disease each year. In the 2000s, a massive effort was made to fight the disease.
With sustained global funding, more children and their families are getting tested and treated for malaria. These efforts are estimated to have saved an estimated 7.5 million lives and prevented over a billion cases of the illness.
In less than five decades, the fight against malaria has been successfully carried out in forty countries. Through the efforts of USAID and other development partners, PMI has been able to acquire hundreds of millions of products that can help prevent and cure malaria.
The World Health Organization’s recommendation for the use of a malaria vaccine in children is a step toward curbing the spread of the disease, but medical breakthroughs are still needed to successfully fight it.
Despite the advancements in malaria prevention and treatment, millions of people still remain out of reach. Around 200 million people die from malaria globally each year.
