World News | Promising new childhood malaria vaccine approved in Ghana

DAKAR (Senegal), April 13 (AP) — Ghana Thursday became the first country to approve a new malaria vaccine for young children that officials hope will better prevent the disease that kills dozens of children each year. A disease that kills thousands.

The final results of the late-stage trial have not yet been released, and the vaccine is under review by the World Health Organization. But preliminary results from early tests of a new vaccine developed at Oxford University suggest it is more effective than the only malaria vaccine currently authorized by the World Health Organization.

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Late-stage testing of the vaccine is still underway in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali and Tanzania, with results expected later this year.

Early trial results released last year showed the vaccine was up to 80 percent effective in vaccinated children in Burkina Faso, depending on how much of the immune-boosting ingredient it contained.

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The World Health Organization has launched the world’s first approved malaria vaccine pilot program in three African countries, including Ghana, Kenya and Malawi. But the vaccine, sold by GlaxoSmithKline under the name Mosquirix, is about 30 percent effective.

It’s unclear how soon a new vaccine will be available. The Ghana Food and Drug Authority approved it for use in children aged five to 36 months, a group at highest risk of dying from malaria, the developers said in a statement.

Once the new Oxford vaccine is available, Ghanaian health officials will weigh “the pros and cons before making a final decision” on which vaccine is more effective, said Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, head of Ghana’s immunization programme. Ghana is currently using a vaccine approved by WHO.

The new vaccine can be produced on a large scale at a moderate cost, the developers say. The Serum Institute of India says it has the potential to produce more than 200 million doses of the vaccine a year through the factory it is building in Ghana’s capital, Accra.

Ghana’s decision to quickly approve the vaccine has been welcomed by health officials on the continent.

“We should learn from the COVID-19 vaccine that was approved within a year,” said Halidou Tinto, director of parasitology research at the Nanoro Institute of Health Sciences and head of the vaccine trial in Burkina Faso.

“The longer (we) wait, we’re going to have tens of thousands of children die from malaria,” he said. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the body of content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)