"It’s life-changing for families across Africa..."
Today marks World Malaria Day, first established 15 years ago to advocate for community-based malaria programs for prevention and treatment. This year, it’s particularly important as we learn that over 1 million children in Africa have been vaccinated in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi through a pilot program developed by the World Health Organization (WHO). This comes after historic news in October of 2021 that the WHO was recommending the vaccine after results from a two-year vaccination study was underway. The trials for the vaccine had started back in 2004, and then a large phase 3 trial released promising results in 2015. The most recent study conducted in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi found that the vaccine was feasible to deliver, had a strong safety profile, and was cost effective, among other things. Critically, the research found that there was a 30% reduction in deadly malaria, even in areas where bed nets were widely used.
In the year that this study was launched, there were roughly 229 million cases and more than 400,000 deaths due to malaria. Young children accounted for two-thirds of these numbers and a strong majority of the deaths are in African countries. Because malaria is caused by parasites rather than a virus, the science behind creating a vaccine is very different (for more on this if you’re interested, I thought this was a fascinating article by Gavi). If widely used, the WHO predicts that the vaccine will save 40,000 to 80,000 children each year.
“As a malaria researcher in my early career, I dreamed of the day we would have an effective vaccine against this devastating disease. This vaccine is not just a scientific breakthrough, it’s life-changing for families across Africa. It demonstrates the power of science and innovation for health. Even so, there is an urgent need to develop more and better tools to save lives and drive progress towards a malaria-free world.”
-- Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General
As we live with the current COVID-19 pandemic, it’s so important to remember that a number of infectious diseases continue to infect and kill children each year and the research into preventing them needs to continue as well. In fact, the mosquito remains the most deadly animal by a long shot – roughly 750,000 to one million deaths per year (humans are next, at 450,000-475,000). In Zambia alone, nearly 8,000 deaths were attributable to malaria in 2019 (compared to roughly 4,000 covid deaths since the start of the pandemic). It remains a challenge in so many aspects of Zambian life – especially in our work to ensure each child has access to a quality education.
-Reshma