Effective Malaria Vaccines: Saving Lives in Africa and Expanding Global Demand

2023-07-06 12:43:00

AFP news agency Reporting from Geneva Switzerland on July 6 that Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director of the WHO, said that malaria is still a disease that kills people. The most people in Africa And it kills nearly 500,000 children under five every year.

The “RTS, S” or “Mosquirix” vaccine (RTS, S/Mosquirix), developed by UK’s GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) It was distributed to more than 1.7 million children in three African countries – Ghana, Kenya and Malawi – as part of a pilot programme.

“This vaccine has been proven to be safe and effective. resulting in severe malaria And the number of child deaths has dropped dramatically,” Dr. Tedros added.

In addition to the above three countries which will continue to be vaccinated The other nine African countries are Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (DR Congo), Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone and Uganda will also receive the malaria vaccine. The first batches of the vaccine are expected to arrive in these countries in the last quarter of 2023 and will be available in early 2024.

What’s more, Dr Tedros said the second malaria vaccine, or “R21/Matrix-M” (R21/Matrix-M), developed by the University of Oxford and produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII), pending pre-qualification by the WHO. to make sure Health products shipped to low-income countries. It is safe and effective.

The WHO, UNICEF and Gavi jointly estimate that Global demand for malaria vaccine might reach 40-60 million doses per year by 2026 and 80-100 million doses per year by 2030.

Photo credit: AFP


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