WHO Approves World’s First Malaria Vaccine For Children
WHO announced that the first malaria vaccine was successful in preventing Malaria and approved the vaccine for children.
Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. It is preventable and curable. Symptoms include fever, headaches and muscle pain, then cycles of chills, fever and sweating.The disease kills more than 400,000 people a year, mostly African children.
Pharmaceutical company GSK had first made a vaccine against malaria in 1987. The vaccine - called RTS,S - was proven effective six years ago. There are more than 100 types of malaria parasites. The RTS,S vaccine targets the one that is most deadly and most common in Africa. Since 2019, a pilot project has been going on in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi in which more than two million doses of the vaccine were given to children. After reviewing post-vaccination data from those countries, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that data showed the vaccine was successful in preventing Malaria and approved the vaccine. He said it can be implemented on children. This is the first Malaria vaccine in the world. The vaccine will only be used in Africa as outside Africa there are different types of Malaria which the vaccine cannot prevent. The WHO said the vaccine will be given to children in 46 countries south of the Sahara Desert in Africa. and in other regions where there is a lot of Malaria infection. The vaccine will be administered in four doses. The first three are given a month apart at five, six and seven months old, and a final booster is needed at around 18 months. The vaccine, developed by the pharmaceutical GSK, is not going to replace all the other measures for controlling malaria such as insecticide-treated bed nets, spraying etc. It will be used alongside them so that the goal of zero deaths from malaria can be achieved.
