WHO Endorses the First-Ever Malaria Vaccine for Widespread Use in Africa

The World Health Organization (WHO), on Wednesday, announced that it is endorsing the first-ever malaria vaccine for widespread use in most affected regions.

The vaccine, RTS,S/AS01 (RTS,S) has been recommended for use among children in sub-Saharan Africa and in other regions with moderate to high malaria transmission.

WHO’s endorsement follows pilot programs conducted in Kenya, Ghana, and Malawi since 2019. The vaccine was administered to 800,000 children in the region.

According to the organization, the results showed that the vaccine, dubbed Mosquirix, is feasible, safe, and cost-effective to deploy and reduces severe malaria by 30 percent.

Africa was chosen due to the prevalence of malaria, which continues to be the main cause of childhood illness and death. Up to 260,000 African kids under the age of 5 die from the disease annually.

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According to Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, malaria has stalked sub-Saharan Africa for centuries causing immense personal suffering.

“We have long hoped for an effective malaria vaccine and now for the first time, we have such a vaccine recommended for widespread use. Today’s recommendation offers a glimmer of hope for the continent which shoulders the heaviest burden of the disease and we expect many more African children to be protected from malaria and grow into healthy adults,” Dr. Moeti said.

WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus lauded the move and described the WHO recommendation as a “historic moment.”

He noted that utilizing the vaccine, in addition to present tools, to stop malaria could save tens of thousands of young lives each year.

This is the first time that the WHO is endorsing a widespread use of a vaccine against a human parasite. Typically, most vaccines fight viruses and bacteria.

The endorsed vaccine, however, works against plasmodium falciparum, one of five malaria parasite species and the most fatal.

It offers an efficacy rate of preventing 39 percent of malaria cases and 29 percent of severe cases. While this looks too low, the effectiveness can be boosted by combining it with anti-malarial tools such as bed netting and insecticide.

After the recommendation, the next step in reaching the goal of deploying the vaccine to African children is funding, said Kate O’Brien, Director of the WHO Department of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals.

What follows would be the scaling of doses, and decisions on where the vaccine would be most useful and deployed, O’Brien added.