12 African Countries To Receive First-Ever Malaria Vaccine – GAVI
Global Vaccine Alliance (GAVI) made it known on Wednesday that twelve countries across various regions in Africa are set to receive 18 million doses of the first-ever RTS, S/AS01 malaria vaccine from 2023 to 2025.
The RTS, S/AS01 vaccine is the first vaccine recommended for use by the World Health Organisation to prevent malaria in children in areas of moderate to high malaria transmission.
“Since 2019, Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi have been delivering the malaria vaccine through the Malaria Vaccine Implementation Programme, coordinated by WHO and funded by Gavi, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and United.
“The RTS, S/AS01 vaccine has been administered to more than 1.7 million children in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi since 2019 and has been shown to be safe and effective, resulting in a substantial reduction in severe malaria and a fall in child deaths. At least 28 African countries have expressed interest in receiving the malaria vaccine.
“In addition to Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi, the initial 18 million dose allocation will enable nine more countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Uganda, to introduce the vaccine into their routine immunization programs for the first time,” the statement read in part.
The first doses of the vaccine are expected to arrive in countries during the last quarter of 2023, with countries starting to roll them out by early 2024.
The statement noted that the allocations have been determined through the application of the principles outlined in the framework for allocation of limited malaria vaccine supply that prioritizes those doses to areas of highest need, where the risk of malaria illness and death among children are highest.
“This vaccine has the potential to be very impactful in the fight against malaria, and when broadly deployed alongside other interventions, it can prevent tens of thousands of future deaths every year,” said the Managing Director of Country Programmes Delivery at Gavi, Thabani Maphosa.
“While we work with manufacturers to help ramp up supply, we need to make sure the doses that we do have are used as effectively as possible, which means applying all the learnings from our pilot programs as we broaden out to a new total of 12 countries,” Maphosa added.
