The World Health Organization (WHO) gave the green light on Monday (October 2) to a second “safe and effective” vaccine for children against malaria. This very old disease, which causes fever, headaches and chills to become a serious, even fatal condition, in the absence of treatment, caused the death of 619,000 people worldwide in 2021, the vast majority cases and deaths occurring in Africa.
“As a malaria researcher, I dreamed of the day when we would have a safe and effective malaria vaccine. Now we have two,” welcomed Doctor Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press conference.
Following advice from its Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and its Malaria Management Policy Advisory Group (MPAG), WHO “recommends a second vaccine called R21/Matrix-M to prevent malaria in children at risk of contracting the disease”.
Other WHO experts are still evaluating manufacturing methods and other regulatory aspects, explained the director of the immunization and vaccines department at WHO, Doctor Kate O’Brien. Once this final green light is obtained, Unicef and the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) will be able to administer the vaccine, which is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India. However, its use has already been authorized by the authorities in Ghana, Nigeria and Burkina Faso.
“Very big step forward”
In 2021, another vaccine, “RTS, S”, produced by British pharmaceutical giant GSK, had become the first vaccine to be recommended by WHO to prevent malaria in children in areas where transmission of the disease is moderate to high. The two vaccines have similar effectiveness rates around 75% when administered under the same conditions.
“At a cost of between 2 and 4 US dollars (1.90 to 3.81 euros) per dose, this vaccine is comparable to other recommended methods against malaria and other childhood vaccines,” said Doctor Tedros. It therefore constitutes a “very big step forward” for the dozens of countries that want to obtain serums against this scourge, indicated Dr. O’Brien.
By 2026, WHO and partners expect demands of up to 60 million doses per year. By 2030, this figure is expected to reach up to 100 million, Gavi said in a statement. Pilot programs to introduce “RTS,S” in three African countries – Ghana, Kenya and Malawi – have resulted in more than 1.7 million children receiving at least one dose of vaccine since 2019.
In July, WHO, Gavi and UNICEF jointly announced that 18 million doses of this anti-malaria vaccine will be allocated to 12 African countries in 2023-2025. Caused by a parasite transmitted by mosquitoes, malaria remains a formidable scourge, particularly for African children, due in particular to increasing resistance to treatment.
Dengue and meningitis vaccines
The malaria vaccine isn’t the only one the WHO SAGE group focused on at its meeting last week. Experts also recommended a new dengue vaccine, Qdenga, for 6-16 year olds living in areas where the disease is a significant public health problem.
They also recommended a new meningitis vaccine, called Men5CV, which protects against five species of bacteria that cause the disease.
As for the fight against Covid-19, these experts judged that for most vaccines, a single dose was now sufficient for the primary vaccination against the disease given that most people have already been infected at least once .