W.H.O Approves First Malaria Vaccine For Children

Nigeria seems to be winning the war against Malaria as the World Health Organisation has approved the first malaria vaccine, Mosquirix.

The vaccine is approved for general use for children in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions with high cases of the disease.

The disease kills about 500,000 people each year and about half of them are children in Africa.

But with the current approval of a new vaccine, made by GlaxoSmithKline, WHO states that a child’s immune system will now be able to fight Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest of five malaria pathogens and the most prevalent in Africa.

The Director General of the UN health department, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the vaccine “is a historic moment. The long-awaited malaria vaccine for children is a breakthrough for science, child health and malaria control.

“Using this vaccine in addition to existing tools to prevent malaria could save tens of thousands of young lives each year,” he added, referring to anti-malaria measures such as bed nets and spraying.

The disease is caused by parasites transmitted through the bites of infected mosquitoes and has killed more people in Africa than Covid-19.

According to WHO, malaria killed 386,000 Africans in 2019, as against 212,000 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in the past 18 months.