Malaria expert Brian Greenwood once resigned himself to the fact that a vaccine for the disease might not be available in his lifetime. Now, at age 86, the moment he has been striving for for 40 years has arrived.
“It’s been a long journey with many ups and downs,” Greenwood said. He remains an active research fellow at the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, leading vaccine trials across Africa. “The first attempts to develop a malaria vaccine through bird research were made over 100 years ago.”
From today, Cameroon, a country in Central Africa, 2.7 million items With the number of malaria infections increasing every year, the company plans to begin rolling out the world’s first routine childhood malaria vaccination using a vaccine called RTS,S, or Mosquirix, made by pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. be. The vaccine targets sporozoites, a contagious form of the malaria parasite, and neutralizes them before they can invade the liver and multiply in thousands.
Cameroon accounts for 48 percent of all hospital admissions and 67 percent of child deaths. related to malariait is hoped that this new development will help alleviate the tremendous burden this disease places on the country’s health care system.
“The efficacy of this vaccine exceeds the medical benefits tested in clinical trials,” said Mohamed Abdulaziz, director of disease control and prevention at the Africa CDC. “Malaria is a leading cause of school absenteeism, anemia and impaired cognitive development. This vaccine will help break the cycle of adversity that has plagued our young people for years.”
Despite efforts to eradicate the mosquitoes that carry the virus, Plasmodium falciparum The parasite, which is the deadliest source of malaria on the African continent, the use of protective nets and the application of insecticides to the walls of houses, Malaria will still kill 608,000 people in 2022. 95% of deaths occurred in Africa. Young children, whose immune systems are still developing, are the most vulnerable. According to the charity UNICEF, a child under the age of five dies from malaria almost every minute.
Deployment is expected to expand rapidly. Twelve African countries will receive a total of 18 million doses of RTS,S over the next two years through Gavi, the vaccine alliance that ensures access to immunization in some of the world’s poorest countries. Cameroon is scheduled to receive 662,000 doses of the vaccine in 2024, followed by Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone and Benin. Due to availability constraints, all vaccines so far have been allocated for children.
“More than 30 countries in Africa have now expressed interest in routine malaria vaccination programs,” said Aurelia Nguyen, Chief Program Officer at Gavi.
Vaccines definitely save lives. In October, the World Health Organization announced A four-year trial of RTS,S among hundreds of thousands of children in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi resulted in a 13 percent reduction in deaths and a 22 percent reduction in severe cases.
But it has already come under criticism for a perceived lack of urgency. The efficacy of RTS,S was first demonstrated in clinical trials in 1998, but it had not yet been demonstrated by the WHO. officially recommend Available until 2021. Over 18 million peopleSince the first trials, it is believed that primarily children have died from the disease.