The WHO praises a “historic milestone”.
Cameroon launched on Monday the world's first systematic and large-scale vaccination campaign against malaria, one of the deadliest diseases among African children.
Noah Ngah, a six-month-old infant, received his first injection of the RTS, S vaccine to the encouragement and songs of nurses at a small hospital in the town of Soa, 20 km from the capital Yaoundé, one of the numerous vaccination centers in 42 districts declared “priority” by the government of this vast Central African country of some 28 million inhabitants.
“A spectacular drop in mortality”
Malaria, also called malaria, is a disease transmitted to humans through the bites of certain types of mosquitoes.
It kills more than 600,000 people each year, 95% of them in Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
And on the continent, children under 5 account for more than 80% of deaths.
WHO-recommended life-saving #malaria vaccines will soon be reached children through routine immunization programs across Africa, beginning with Cameroon.
This is a historic step towards wider vaccination against one of the deadliest diseases for African children… pic.twitter.com/UNfiW0tgt8
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 22, 2024
More than 300,000 doses of the RTS, S anti-malaria vaccine from the British pharmaceutical group GSK, the first to have been validated and recommended by the WHO, were delivered to Cameroon on November 21.
It took two months to organize the start of this campaign during which the antimalaria injection is offered free of charge, according to the government, and systematically to all children under six months of age, at the same time as other traditional vaccines.
RTS,S has been tested since 2019 in “pilot programs” in three African countries, Kenya, Ghana and Malawi, in a limited number of locations.
These programs had “resulted in a spectacular 13% reduction in mortality from all causes among children of age to receive the vaccine, as well as a substantial reduction in severe forms of malaria and hospitalizations”, concluded the WHO in november.
A child dies every minute
In Africa, “a child under 5 years old dies from malaria almost every minute”, underlines the WHO, which on Monday welcomes the “introduction” of the vaccine “in essential” and “routine” vaccination programs in country at risk.
The next countries to embark on large-scale vaccination, in the coming days or weeks, after having already received 1.7 million doses of RTS, S, are Burkina Faso, Liberia, Niger and Sierra Leone , specifies the organization.
“Large-scale implementation of malaria vaccination” is “a historic step” which “could be a game-changer in the fight against malaria and save tens of thousands of lives each year”, estimated the WHO at the end of November .