First malaria vax for kids in at-risk regions endorsed
The World Health Organization on Wednesday recommended widespread use of the world’s first and only malaria vaccine for children in sub-Saharan Africa and other at-risk regions, a potential game changer against a parasitic disease that kills an average of one child every 2 minutes.
The agency said children in areas with moderate to high levels of P. falciparum, the deadliest and predominant species of the parasite causing malaria, should take the four-dose vaccine starting at 5 months old. The shots — called Mosquirix and developed by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline — are only 30% effective at preventing deadly, severe cases, but the WHO believes they could drastically reduce deaths.
“This is a historic moment,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the agency’s director general. “The long-awaited malaria vaccine for children is a breakthrough for science, child health and malaria control.”
When paired with existing drugs to prevent malaria, the shots could end up saving tens of thousands of young lives each year, he said.
“I started my career as a #malaria researcher, and I longed for the day that we would have an effective vaccine against this ancient and terrible disease. Today is that day,” Ghebreyesus tweeted after the announcement.
Malaria is a primary cause of childhood illness and death in sub-Saharan Africa, killing more than 260,000 children under the age of 5 every year, according to the WHO. Despite some gains in controlling the disease over the past two decades, progress has stalled in recent years.
Wednesday’s recommendation comes two years after the WHO launched a pilot project to administer the vaccine in some 800,000 children in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi.
The pilot found that the shots are safe, feasible and highly cost-effective, according to the agency. The 30% prevention rate among severe and deadly cases was considered “significant,” even in areas where people sleep under insecticide-treated bed nets, WHO officials said.
The three first doses should be given between the ages of 5 and 17 months, with the fourth dose about 18 months later, they said.
The vaccine has been in the making for more than three decades.
Studies began in 1987, but it took years and help from numerous nonprofit organizations to finally launch a pilot in Africa in 2019.