Malaria: Vaccine | Opinion | THE COUNTRY

The virus had noticeable effects —Almost all sad— and others less obvious. For example, it made us provincial, understanding the provincial as a defensive retreat towards what is own and what is local. For months each country was aware of its own restrictions (what time do bars close? Is tourism coming back? Will there be schools?), Of its own dead and its own infected. Every so often, some news pierced the protective layer – formed by despair and uncertainty – and thus, from outer space, matters such as the assumption of biden, Maradona’s death, the Olympic Games. But who found out about the Venezuelan migrant crisis in Chile; how long did the interest in the lives of women in Afghanistan last under the Taliban or in the political situation in Nicaragua? Time will tell if that local gaze has turned into fossil flesh. For now, it seems so. The first week of October something historic happened that went almost unnoticed: the World Health Organization first approved the widespread use of a malaria vaccine. This vaccine has been applied as a pilot program since 2019 in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi and, although the WHO had warned that the covid-19 pandemic could slow down scientific studies related to other diseases, in this case the prophecies were not fulfilled and the Malaria, which affects mostly infants and young children and from which 600,000 people die each year, now has a highly effective vaccine for the first time. 80% of the total cases of this disease occur in Africa which is, in turn, the continent where a third of the world’s undernourished live. This vaccine will prevent 260,000 children from dying per year. What I wonder is how it is going to be done, if we are still so concerned about ourselves, so that those who survive malaria do not starve.