April 21, 2023
Nigeria (April 17, 2023) and Ghana (April 13, 2023) are the first two countries to approve the use of the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford (R21/Matrix-M) against malaria and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India. It has been approved for use in children, between 5 and 36 months.
Nigeria, the continent’s most populous nation, is the worst affected country in the world accounting for 27% of global malaria cases and 32% of global deaths in 2020, according to the World Malaria Report 2021. The country it accounted for approximately 55.2 percent of malaria cases in West Africa in 2020.
The approval of the R21 vaccine is a breakthrough in the fight against malaria, which has been a major public health challenge in Africa for decades.
The development of a malaria vaccine has long been hampered by the complex structure and life cycle of the parasite. The R21 vaccine was up to 77 percent successful in clinical trials conducted in Burkina Faso when given as three initial doses, followed by a booster shot a year later.
The first malaria vaccine to be approved was Mosquirix in 2022 (its efficacy is around 60 percent). Before this, there were failed vaccines: SPf66, CSP, NYVAC-Pf7, NANP
The vaccine adds to the idea of achieving the WHO goal of reducing malaria cases and deaths by 90% by 2030. Other African countries are also studying the data to assess its introduction.
Malaria Nigeria
