Young children in particular are the victims. Every minute a child in the world dies from malaria. Ghana now gives the green light for the vaccine for the highest risk group. These are children under the age of three.
Faster than WHO
It is striking that the African country gives approval faster than the World Health Organization WHO. That is also considering approving the vaccine soon. Ghana did not want to wait for that. According to malaria researcher Adrian Hill of Oxford, African countries have taken an active attitude since corona. “They say, we don’t want to be last in line.”
Trials with the Oxford vaccine – also known as R21 – appear to be more effective than the other vaccine that has also only been available recently: Mosquirix, from pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. The Oxford vaccine will also be able to be produced in much larger quantities. A factory is being built in Ghana that can produce 100 to 200 million doses annually.
Malaria in the world
More than half a million people die from malaria each year. That is almost 1400 a day. It is mainly African children under the age of five who die from the infectious disease.
Malaria is caused by a parasite that is transmitted by the malaria mosquito. The malaria mosquito also flew around in the Netherlands until the beginning of the twentieth century. It was not until 1970 that the World Health Organization declared the Netherlands malaria-free.
In September last year, the first results of the Oxford vaccine were published in the medical journal The Lancet. Malaria researcher Matthew McCall of Radboudumc then told RTL News that the vaccine will not be the death knell for malaria. “There will be a significant reduction in the number of cases, but infections will still occur.”
Different malaria species
This has to do with the different types of malaria parasites. “You can compare it with the corona virus. The vaccine is less effective against some of those variants. It is extremely difficult to develop one unique vaccine against all those forms of malaria. We struggle enormously with that.”
Crucial step
The University of Oxford says it is happy with the approval. “It is hoped that this first critical step will enable the vaccine to help Ghanaian and African children fight malaria effectively.”
According to the WHO, there are more than five million malaria infections in Ghana each year, resulting in more than 12,000 deaths.
