Chronicle Editor
Thandeka Moyo, Health Reporter
ZIMBABWE is on course to introduce an additional vaccine for malaria on the killer disease list of vaccines for under fives as the World Health Organisation has launched the vaccine in three pilot African countries.
Malaria remains one of the world’s leading killers, claiming the life of one child every two minutes. Most of these deaths are in Africa, where more than 250 000 children die from the disease every year.
If the vaccine against malaria which will be administered to children aged from five months to two years succeeds, it will be rolled out to heavily burdened countries.
The first countries who will be part of the pilot project are Malawi, which has already launched the vaccine, Ghana and Kenya which are expected to launch soon.
In a statement, WHO Zimbabwe director, Dr Alex Gasasira, said the introduction of the vaccine on immunisation schedules of countries in sub-Saharan Africa will assist in putting the malaria response back on track.
Children under five are at greatest risk of malarial life-threatening complications. Worldwide, malaria kills 435 000 people a year, most of them children.
“The vaccine took 30 years to develop and the trials will take two years. If it succeeds it will then be introduced on routine immunisation programmes of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Zimbabwe included,” Dr Gasasira said.
Each of the three countries is expected to immunise 120 000 children by 2020, according to the WHO.
The vaccine known as RTS-S will be administered to children aged between five months to two years.
The protein-based RTS-S vaccine went through five years of clinical trials on 15 000 people in seven countries.
In clinical trials, the vaccine was found to prevent approximately four in 10 malaria cases, including three in 10 cases of life-threatening severe malaria.
The vaccine needs to be given four times, once a month for three months and then a fourth dose 18 months later.
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the malaria vaccine has the potential to save tens of thousands of children’s lives.
“We have seen tremendous gains from bed nets and other measures to control malaria in the last 15 years, but progress has stalled and even reversed in some areas. We need new solutions to get the malaria response back on track, and this vaccine gives us a promising tool to get there,” said Dr Ghebreyesus. – @thamamoe
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