admin
LONDON. – Children across much of Africa are to be vaccinated against malaria in a historic moment in the fight against the deadly disease.
Malaria has been one of the biggest scourges on humanity for millennia and mostly kills babies and infants.
Having a vaccine – after more than a century of trying – is among medicine’s greatest achievements.
The vaccine – called RTS,S – was proven effective six years ago.
Now, after the success of pilot immunisation programmes in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, the World Health Organization says the vaccine should be rolled out across sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO said it was a “historic day” and “tens of thousands of young lives could be saved” by the vaccine each year.
“This is a vaccine developed in Africa by African scientists and we’re very proud.
“This vaccine is a gift to the world but its value will be felt most in Africa,” he said.
Malaria is a parasite that invades and destroys our blood cells in order to reproduce and it’s spread by the bite of blood-sucking mosquitoes.
Drugs to kill the parasite, bed nets to prevent bites and insecticides to kill the mosquito have all helped reduce malaria.
However, there are still around 230 million cases and 400–000 deaths a year – and around 95 percent of the burden of malaria is felt in Africa, where more than 260,000 children died from the disease in 2019.
It takes years of being repeatedly infected to build up immunity and even this only reduces the chances of becoming severely ill.
The new vaccine, made by GlaxoSmithKline, rouses a child’s immune system to thwart Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest of five malaria pathogens and the most prevalent in Africa. The vaccine is not just a first for malaria — it is the first developed for any parasitic disease.
In clinical trials, the vaccine had an efficacy of about 50 percent against severe malaria in the first year, but dropped close to zero by the fourth year. And the trials did not measure the vaccine’s impact on preventing deaths, which has led some experts to question whether it is a worthwhile investment in countries with countless other intractable problems. Dr Kwame Amponsa-Achiano has been piloting the vaccine in Ghana to assess whether mass vaccination was feasible and effective.
“It is quite an exciting moment for us, with large scale vaccination I believe the malaria toll will be reduced to the barest minimum,” he said.
Constantly catching malaria as a child inspired Dr Amponsa-Achiano to become a doctor in Ghana.
“It was distressing, almost every week you were out of school, malaria has taken a toll on us for a long time,” he told me.
There are more than 100 types of malaria parasite. The RTS,S vaccine targets the one that is most deadly and most common in Africa: plasmodium falciparum.
Trials, reported in 2015, had shown the vaccine could prevent around four in 10 cases of malaria, three in 10 severe cases and lead to the number of children needing blood transfusions falling by a third.
However, there were doubts the vaccine would work in the real world as it requires four doses to be effective. The first three are given a month apart at five, six and seven months old, and a final booster is needed at around 18
The results, from more than 2,3 million doses, showed:
The vaccine was safe and still led to a 30 percent reduction in severe malaria
It reached more than two-thirds of children who don’t have a bed net to sleep under
There was no negative impact on other routine vaccines or other measures to prevent malaria
The vaccine was cost-effective
“From a scientific perspective, this is a massive breakthrough, from a public health perspective this is a historical feat,” said Dr Pedro Alonso, the director of the WHO Global Malaria Programme.
“We’ve been looking for a malaria vaccine for over 100 years now, it will save lives and prevent disease in African children.”
The vaccine is not going to replace all the other measures for controlling malaria such as insecticide-treated bed nets. It will be used alongside them to get closer to the goal of zero deaths from malaria. – Agencies
Online Reporter