Africa will get the first-ever malaria vaccine, according to the WHO

According to the World Health Organization, at least 28 countries on the continent indicated interest in acquiring the Mosquirix malaria serum.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and other organizations said on Wednesday that the first malaria vaccine in the history of the world will soon be introduced in Africa, with twelve nations on the continent anticipated to get 18 million doses over the following two years.

More than 1.7 million children have received the Mosquirix (RTS,S/AS01) vaccine since 2019, according to a joint release from the WHO, the Global Vaccine Alliance GAVI, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The vaccine has already been used in trial programs in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi.

The vaccination will soon be introduced in nine other nations: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.

The malaria vaccine, which has been shown to be “safe and effective,” has “at least 28 African countries have expressed interest in receiving it,” according to the agencies’ statement.

“The high demand for the vaccine and the strong reach of childhood immunization will increase equity in access to malaria prevention and save many young lives,” said Kate O’Brien, WHO Director of Immunization.

The first doses of the vaccine should arrive in the targeted nations in the final quarter of this year, and they will start to be distributed there by the beginning of 2024.

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According to the WHO, malaria is among the worst diseases in Africa, killing more than 500,000 children under the age of five just in 2021. The health organization said that in that year, 96% of all malaria fatalities and cases worldwide occurred on the continent.

According to the WHO, the first medication that is advised for use to prevent malaria in children in areas with moderate to high transmission of the disease is the RTS,S vaccine, which was created by the British multinational pharmaceutical company GSK.