WHO backs use of first malaria vaccine for children

The global health body recommended the roll-out of GlaxoSmithKline’s Mosquirix in Africa, in what could be a major advance against the deadly disease

Malaria killed 386,000 Africans in 2019, compared with 212,000 confirmed deaths from Covid-19 in the past 18 months

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A mother holds her baby, who is receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Centre in Western Kenya in October 2009. Photo: AP

Published: 1:13am, 7 Oct 2021Updated: 3:38am, 7 Oct 2021

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday the only approved vaccine against malaria should be widely given to African children, potentially marking a major advance against a disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people annually.

The WHO recommendation is for RTS,S – or Mosquirix – a vaccine developed by British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline.

Since 2019, 2.3 million doses of Mosquirix have been administered to infants in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi in a large-scale pilot programme coordinated by the WHO. Most those whom the disease kills are aged under five.

That programme followed a decade of clinical trials in seven African countries.

“This is a vaccine developed in Africa by African scientists and we’re very proud,” said WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “This vaccine is a gift to the world but its value will be felt most in Africa.”

Malaria is far more deadly than Covid-19 in Africa. It killed 386,000 Africans in 2019, according to a WHO estimate, compared with 212,000 confirmed deaths from Covid-19 in the past 18 months.