According to the statement, the initial 18 million dose allocation will go to nine countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Uganda which are to introduce the vaccine into their routine immunization programs for the first time.
The WHO Africa Regional Director Dr. Matshidiso Moeti says the malaria vaccine just introduced recently in 2019 has been well accepted in a short time that demand for it remained high even in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, WHO is recommending widespread use of the Mosquirix, a new vaccine by GlaxoSmithKline which rouses a child’s immune system to thwart Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest of five malaria pathogens and the most prevalent in Africa. The vaccine is not just a first for malaria — it is the first developed for any parasitic disease.
The World Health Organization-Regional Office for Africa WHO/AFRO announced today that Kenya, Ghana and Malawi will begin piloting the injectable vaccine on children aged five to 17 months to see whether its protective effects shown so far in clinical trials can hold up under real-life conditions.
