This content was published on April 21, 2022 – 13:48
Nairobi, Apr 21 (EFE) .- More than a million children in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi have already received one or more doses of the world’s first malaria vaccine thanks to the pilot program coordinated by the World Health Organization ( WHO), this UN agency reported today.
“As a malaria researcher early in my career, I dreamed of the day when we would have an effective vaccine against this devastating disease,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said in a statement.
“This vaccine is not just a scientific breakthrough, it is life-changing for families across Africa,” he added, noting the “urgent need to develop more and better tools to save lives and drive progress towards a malaria-free world.” .
The pilot program was first launched by the Government of Malawi in April 2019, showing that the vaccine called RTS,S “is safe and easy to administer, and that it substantially reduces fatal severe malaria,” the WHO said in the statement. .
This malaria vaccine is the result of 30 years of research and development by the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in association with the international non-profit organization PATH (dedicated to the development of technological solutions mainly related to the health of children and women). ) and the support of a network of African research centers.
The approved vaccine has been administered in regular vaccination programs and has had a high level of acceptance and trust by families in the three countries where it has been used.
RTS,S is a first-generation vaccine that, according to the WHO, could be supplemented in the future with other vaccines of similar or greater efficacy.
In October 2021, the WHO recommended expanding the use of this vaccine among children living in settings with moderate to high malaria transmission.
The UN body estimates that if widely used, the vaccine could save the lives of an additional 40,000 to 80,000 African children each year.
According to the latest World Malaria Report, in 2020 there were an estimated 241 million malaria cases and 627,000 malaria deaths worldwide.
Africa, with an estimated 228 million cases in 2020, accounted for close to 95% of cases.
Malaria is a disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bite of infected females of the Anopheles mosquito genus.
The first symptoms (fever, headache and chills) usually appear 10-15 days after the mosquito bite and, although they may be mild, if left untreated they can lead to a serious clinical picture and cause death within 24 hours. EFE
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