Health·Updated
Routine malaria vaccines start to roll out to protect children in AfricaThe first routine vaccine to protect children from malaria, one of Africa’s deadliest diseases, launches in Cameroon.
‘Giant step forward’ to save children’s lives, says UNICEF
Amina Zafar · CBC News
· Posted: Jan 22, 2024 12:01 AM EST | Last Updated: 17 minutes ago
Nurse Janet Wanyama vaccinates nine-month-old Brilliant Hope against malaria while his mother Juliah Machanja watches at the Malava County Hospital Child Welfare Clinic in Kakamega, Kenya. (Lameck Orina/Gavi/White Rhino Films)Children in Cameroon will now be able to be vaccinated to protect them from malaria, one of Africa’s deadliest diseases.
Of the 249-million malaria cases and more than 600,000 deaths worldwide in 2022, the vast majority were in Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Children under five are among those at highest risk.
On Monday, the world’s first malaria vaccine, known as RTS,S, started to roll out for routine immunizations in Africa following its approval by WHO in 2021. Pilots for the vaccine happened in Ghana, Malawi and Kenya.
“This is a giant step forward in our collective efforts to save children’s lives and to reduce the burden of malaria,” Andrew Jones, principal advisor in UNICEF Supply Division’s Vaccine Centre said in a media briefing from Copenhagen.
Cameroon’s babies and other children under five are up first to receive the immunizations.
“It has been an excitement throughout the community that finally we have another tool that we can fight malaria,” said Mbianke Livancliff of Value Health Africa in Yaoundé.
WATCH | Malaria vaccinations begin:
World’s 1st malaria vaccination campaign starts in CameroonCameroon has launched the world’s first vaccination campaign against malaria, initially targeting six month olds. Twenty more African countries plan to start vaccination programs this year against the disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people a year.
Wilfred Fon Mbacham, a professor of public health biotechnology at University of Yaoundé, said one of his earliest memories was his first bout of malaria.
“One of the things that stopped me from going to school was a bout of malaria from which I came out with muscle aches, headaches and fatigue,” he said.
“We dreaded falling ill [with] malaria and being treated with chloroquine,” which caused a lot of itching, he said. Today’s medications have fewer side-effects, he added.
Dr. Dorothy Achu, WHO’s team lead for tropical and vector-borne diseases in the Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, said malaria cases in Africa are declining but continue to be higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic — a reflection of public health not fully recovering from service disruptions.
Meeting demand”In the malaria community we always say we do not have any magic bullet,” Achu said.
That’s why immunization campaigns alone won’t be enough to stop epidemics, and measures such as insecticide-treated bednets also need to continue, physicians say.
John Johnson, a vaccine and epidemic response expert with Doctors without Borders in Paris, said malaria is the No. 1 illness his group treats in all its programs.
WATCH | Malaria vaccine expectations:
Malaria is a ‘scourge’ on Cameroon. A new vaccine is cause for hope, this professor saysWilfred Fon Mbacham, a professor of public health biotechnology at the University of Yaoundé, says a new malaria vaccine is a badly needed tool in Cameroon’s fight against malaria.
Johnson called the rollout big news, noting RTS,S is the first vaccine against a parasite.
But Johnson also cautioned that uptake of the multiple required doses could be a challenge on top of routine childhood immunizations against measles, yellow fever and other illnesses, given the malaria immunizations are provided later in a child’s life than those already scheduled, thus requiring more medical visits.
“I think it’s going to take a lot of support and guidance and hard work from countries and partners to ensure that it’s successful,” said Johnson, a nurse practitioner who is not involved in the campaign.
Public health experts say a second approved malaria vaccine, R21/Matrix-M, developed by Oxford University with help from the Serum Institute of India, is also expected to roll out in Africa later this year.
“Having two vaccines for malaria will help to close the huge gap between demand and supply and could save tens of thousands of young lives, especially in Africa,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, at a meeting of the UN body’s executive board.
Both RTS,S and R21 work against the falciparum form of the malaria parasite, which is common on the continent of Africa.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amina Zafar covers medical sciences and health topics, including infectious diseases, for CBC News. She holds an undergraduate degree in environmental science and a master’s in journalism.
With files from CBC’s Tashauna Reid and News Network
