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The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that African children should be widely vaccinated with the only approved malaria vaccine, marking significant progress in the fight against a disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year.
The WHO’s recommendation is for RTS and S to be sold in the form of “Mosquirix”, a vaccine developed by the British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline.
Since 2019, in a large-scale pilot project coordinated by WHO, 2.3 million doses of Mosquirix have been injected into babies in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi. Most people who die from this disease are under the age of five.
The plan was carried out after ten years of clinical trials in seven African countries.
“This long-awaited malaria vaccine is a scientific breakthrough. It is a vaccine developed in Africa by African scientists, and we are very proud,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“In addition to the existing malaria prevention tools, the use of this vaccine can save tens of thousands of young people’s lives each year,” he added, referring to anti-malaria measures such as mosquito nets and spraying.
In Africa, malaria is more deadly than COVID-19. According to estimates by the World Health Organization, it killed 386,000 Africans in 2019, and in the past 18 months, 212,000 people have been confirmed to have died of COVID-19.
According to the World Health Organization, 94% of malaria cases and deaths occur in Africa, a continent of 1.3 billion people. This preventable disease is caused by a parasite transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected mosquito; symptoms include fever, vomiting and fatigue.
The vaccine is only about 30% effective in preventing severe malaria cases in children, but it is the only vaccine approved. The EU drug regulatory agency approved it in 2015, saying that its benefits outweigh the risks.
“This is how we fight malaria, stacking imperfect tools together,” said Ashley Birkett, who leads the global malaria vaccine work at Path, a non-profit global health organization that collaborates with GlaxoSmithKline and GlaxoSmithKline. The three agencies jointly funded the development of the vaccine. -National pilot.
Researchers said in April that another malaria vaccine called R21/Matrix-M developed by scientists at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom showed up to 77% in a one-year study involving 450 children in Burkina Faso. % Efficacy, but it is still in the trial stage.
GSK also welcomes WHO’s recommendations.
Global Chief Health Officer Thomas Breuer said in a statement: “This long-awaited landmark decision can revive the fight against malaria in the region while progress in malaria control has stalled. “
Funding challenge
Experts say the challenge now will be to raise funds for vaccine production and distribution to some of the world’s poorest countries.
So far, GlaxoSmithKline has pledged to produce 15 million doses of Mosquirix every year, in addition to 10 million doses donated to the WHO pilot project. By 2028, the production cost plus a profit of no more than 5%.
A global market study led by WHO this year predicts that if malaria vaccines are deployed in areas with moderate to high transmission, the annual demand for malaria vaccines will reach 5 to 110 million doses by 2030.
The GAVI Vaccine Alliance is a global public-private partnership that will consider whether and how to fund vaccination programs in December.
“As we have seen from the COVID vaccine, as long as there is political will, funds are available to ensure that the vaccine is adjusted to the required level,” said Kate O’Brien, Director of the WHO Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Vaccines. Biological product.
A source familiar with the vaccine development plan said that the price of each dose has not yet been determined, but will be confirmed after GAVI makes a funding decision, once there is a clear demand for the vaccine.
Germany’s BioNTech, which is cooperating with the US giant Pfizer to develop a coronavirus vaccine, also stated that its goal is to use the same breakthrough mRNA technology for malaria vaccine trials next year.
WHO also hopes that this latest recommendation will encourage scientists to develop more malaria vaccines.
The WHO decision has personal significance for Dr. Rose Jalong’o, a vaccinologist at the Kenyan Ministry of Health.
“I suffered from malaria when I was a child. During my internship, during my clinical years, I took care of children with severe malaria in the hospital. They needed blood transfusions. Unfortunately, some of them died.
“This is a disease that accompanied me when I grew up. It is an exciting time to see all this in my lifetime.”
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