2023-04-25 19:21:33
The R21/Matrix-M vaccine, developed by scientists at the University of Oxford and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, has received the green light from Ghanaian authorities for use in that country. News that raises hope in this West African country and far beyond. Indeed, it is clear that the approval of this vaccine by Ghana marks the culmination of 30 years of research. We can only rejoice that the country of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is the first in the world to approve the use of this new antimalarial vaccine. Once this step has been taken, it is to be hoped that the Ghanaian authorities will quickly move on to a no less important step. This is the materiality of this authorization which would go through the marketing of the vaccine in question. This is all the more important as the African populations are impatient to come to grips with this evil once and for all. Remember that malaria kills a child every minute in the world and to take only the example of Ghana, there were 5.3 million malaria cases and 12,500 deaths in 2021. Hence the urgency of tackle this scourge. The macabre figures are chilling and should push these African researchers to accelerate the pace in the quest for a vaccine to relieve the populations.
We are waiting for the operationalization of the research results
That said, in their desire to fight once morest the scourge, many countries have set up research structures. The proof, official results of phase 3 research trials are in progress on 4800 children in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali and Tanzania. They expect to be published by the end of 2023. We therefore expect the operationalization of these research results, which should notably go through the approval by the WHO (World Health Organization) of this vaccine. Regarding the Serum Institute of India, it is announced the signing of a technology transfer agreement to produce the vaccine in Ghana. This bodes well for the deployment of R21 in all African countries affected by the disease.
Ben Issa TRAORE
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