New Malaria vaccine receives WHO’s approval

NEW DELHI: The World Health Organisation, on Wednesday, October 6, endorsed the world’s first vaccine against Malaria. Malaria is a mosquito borne disease which kills over 4,00,000 people in a year across the world, and is most prevalent in Africa. WHO recommended the use of newly developed malaria vaccine, RTS,S/AS01 (RTS,S), also named Mosquirix, against moderate to high transmission of P. falciparum malaria.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, WHO, said that RTS,S malaria vaccine for children is a breakthrough for science, child health, and malaria control. He said that it took more than 30 years to make the RTS,S malaria vaccine and it will change the course of public health worldwide. He added that by using this vaccine to prevent malaria on top of existing tools could save tens of thousands of lives each year, especially those of young ones.

WHO issued a statement where, in the context of comprehensive malaria control, WHO recommended that the RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine should be administered in a schedule of 4 doses in children from five months of age.

The mention of the vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline, a British drugmaker, by the WHO came after the latest results from an ongoing pilot programme in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi. The pilot found RTS,S increases equity in access to malaria prevention as the pilot programme gave evidence of more than two-thirds of children in the mentioned three countries, who were not sleeping under a bednet, benefitted from the RTS,S vaccine. Moreover, significant reduction in deadly severe malaria was noticed, even when introduced in areas where insecticide-treated nets are widely used and there is good access to diagnosis and treatment.

In the near future, the global health community will take funding decisions for wide ranging rollout of the malaria vaccine.