2024-01-16 14:58:49
/picture alliance, Miro May
Cotonou The West African country of Benin has received the first delivery of a vaccine once morest the tropical disease malaria. Health Minister Benjamin Hounkpatin received 215,900 doses of the RTS,S vaccine at Cotonou airport yesterday evening.
According to him, the first vaccinations will take place within a few months. Malaria remains the leading cause of death in children under the age of five in Benin, the Minister of Health emphasized. According to him, around 40 percent of outpatient treatments and 25 percent of hospital admissions in Benin can be attributed to malaria.
According to the vaccination specialist at the Unicef office in Benin, Faustin Yao, thousands of children under the age of two will be vaccinated with a total of four doses with the vaccine that has now been delivered. After Cameroon and Sierra Leone, Benin is the third African country to receive the vaccine once morest malaria as part of a large-scale vaccination campaign.
Previously, four doses of the vaccine had been administered to children aged five months and older in a pilot program in some areas of Ghana, Kenya and Malawi since 2019. According to the International Vaccination Alliance, this immunization of more than two million children resulted Gavi to a spectacular decline in child mortality from malaria and to a significant decline in severe malaria infections.
Malaria is caused by parasites transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito. The disease poses a major health risk in Africa, especially for young children, especially as resistance to common antimalarial drugs is becoming increasingly common.
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