The world’s first malaria vaccine will be rolled out in pilot projects in sub-Saharan Africa in 2018, the World Health Organization has confirmed this week.
In a statement, the organisation said funding had been secured for the initial phase of the program which will deploy the vaccine RTS,S which acts against the most deadly malaria parasite, known as P. falciparum, which is also the one which is most prevalent in Africa.
Dr Pedro Alonso, director of the WHO global malaria programme, said the initiative marked “a milestone in the fight against malaria”. “These pilot projects will provide the evidence we need from real-life settings to make informed decisions on whether to deploy the vaccine on a wide scale,” he said.
Some $US15 million to fund the vaccine pilots has already been received and an additional commitment of $US37 million has been pledged to cover the first four years of any subsequent vaccination program. The vaccine was developed through a partnership between global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a network of African research centres.
A recent report from WHO said there were more than 400,000 malaria deaths globally in 2015 and 214 million new cases. But, while noting that about 3.2 billion people remain at risk of the disease, the report said that malaria mortality rates had declined by about 60 per cent globally since 2000 and by 65 per cent among children under the age of five.
