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KENYA-HEALTH-VACCINES-MALARIA-WHO
Kenya becomes third country to adopt world’s first malaria vaccine
NAIROBI, Sept 13, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Kenya on Friday became the third
country to start routinely innoculating infants against malaria, using the
world’s first vaccine to combat a disease that kills 800 children globally
every day.
The vaccine — RTS,S — targets the deadliest and most common form of
malaria parasite in Africa, where children under five account for two-thirds
of all global deaths from the mosquito-born illness.
Kenya, which is rolling-out RTS,S in the western county of Homa Bay, joins
Malawi and Ghana, which earlier this year commenced their own pilot
vaccination programmes supported by the World Health Organization (WHO).
“This is the most advanced malaria vaccine that we have today. It has been
in the making for the last almost three decades,” Dr Richard Mihigo, WHO’s
co-ordinator of immunisation and vaccine development programme, told AFP
before the Kenyan launch, which will expand to other malaria-prone areas of
the country.
“Children are the most vulnerable group to this severe disease that is
malaria, so protecting children can make a big impact in preventing malaria.”
The vaccine will be added in these pilot areas to the other routine shots
given to young children under national immunisation schedules.
RTS,S acts against ‘Plasmodium falciparum’, the deadliest form of malaria,
and the most prevalent in Africa, where illness and death from the disease
remains high despite some gains.
The shots, administered over four doses, have been shown in clinical
trials to significantly reduce cases of malaria, and malaria-related
complications, in young children. The vaccine prevented about four in 10
cases of malaria and three in 10 cases of the most severe, life-threatening
form of the disease, within the trial group, WHO says.
RTS,S will be considered for use more broadly as a tool to fight malaria,
alongside other preventative measures such as long-lasting insecticidal nets.
The disease kills more than 400,000 people around the world every year. Of
these about 290,000 were children under five.
WHO says a child dies roughly every two minutes from malaria somewhere in
the world.
Most of these are in Africa, where more than 90 percent of the world’s
malaria cases — and fatalities — occur.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1606 hrs