Children in much of Africa will be vaccinated against malaria following a historic decision to fight the deadly disease, according to the BBC.
Malaria has been one of the scourges of humanity for thousands of years and mainly kills children.
Making a vaccine – after more than a century of trying – is one of the great achievements of medicine.
The vaccine, called RTS, S, has been shown to be effective six years ago.
Now, following a pilot immunization program in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, the World Health Organization has said it should be administered in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions with moderate and high malaria transmission.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director general, said it was “a historic moment”.
“The long-awaited malaria vaccine for children is a success for science, children’s health and malaria control,” he said.
Using the vaccine in addition to other existing tools “can save tens of thousands of young lives each year,” the expert added.
Malaria is a parasite that invades the body and destroys blood cells to reproduce and is spread by mosquito bites.
Drugs that kill the parasite, nets and insecticides to kill mosquitoes have helped reduce the spread of the disease.
Even so, there are still around 230 million cases and 400,000 deaths annually, and around 95% of them are recorded in Africa, where more than 260,000 children have died from the disease in 2019.
A person needs many years in which to be repeatedly infected to develop immunity and this only reduces the risk of developing a serious form of the disease.
Dr. Kwame Amponsa-Achiano led the pilot immunization program in Ghana to assess whether mass vaccination is feasible and effective. “It’s a thrilling time for us. With large-scale vaccination, I believe the footprint of malaria will be kept to a minimum, “he said.
There are more than 100 types of parasites that cause this disease. The RTS, S vaccine targets the deadliest and most common of them in Africa: plasmodium falciparum.
Studies, whose findings were reported in 2015, showed that the vaccine can prevent about 4 in 10 cases of malaria, 3 in 10 serious cases and the number of children requiring blood transfusions has been reduced by a third.
There have been doubts that the vaccine will work in the real world, given that four doses are needed to be effective. The first three are given one month apart to children aged five, six and seven months and the final dose is required around the age of 18 months.
The latest findings from the pilot programs were discussed by two groups of experts on Wednesday.
The results, following the administration of over 2.3 million doses, show: the vaccine was safe and led to a 30% reduction in severe cases of malaria; was administered to more than two-thirds of children who do not sleep under a net; there was no negative impact on other routine vaccines or other measures to prevent malaria; the vaccine is cost effective.
The serum, developed by the pharmaceutical company GSK, will not replace the other measures applied to control malaria, but will be used together with them in an attempt to achieve zero deaths caused by the disease.
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