“This is a historic moment,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press release. “The long-awaited malaria vaccine for children is a scientific advance, for child health and for malaria control.”
“Using this vaccine in addition to the tools available to prevent malaria could save tens of thousands of young lives every year,” he added.
“For centuries, malaria has plagued sub-Saharan Africa and caused enormous suffering,” said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.
He continued, “For years we have pinned our hope of obtaining an effective malaria vaccine, and now for the first time we have a vaccine recommended for widespread use,” according to “AFP”.
The RTS,S vaccine works against a parasite transmitted by mosquitoes, and it is the most deadly parasite in the world, and the most prevalent in Africa.
The vaccine is a glimmer of hope for Africa, where malaria kills more than 260,000 children under the age of five each year, especially as concerns grow about malaria drug resistance.
Since 2019, three countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, have started using the vaccine in selected areas where malaria transmission is moderate to severe.
Two years after the start of the first on-the-ground testing of this vaccine in the world, 2.3 million doses of it have been administered.
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