…To become available mid-2024
The World Health Organisation, (WHO) has recommended a new vaccine, R21/Matrix-M, for the prevention of malaria in children.
The recommendation follows advice from the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation and the Malaria Policy Advisory Group and was endorsed by the WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, following its regular biannual meeting held on September 25 -29.
The global health body disclosed this in a press statement yesterday.
Recall that in April, Nigeria became the second country to approve the R21 malaria vaccine, after Ghana.
The R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine, developed by the University of Oxford and manufactured and scaled-up by the Serum Institute of India, is only the second vaccine the world has seen for a disease that has caused untold suffering for millennia.
WHO also issued recommendations for new vaccines for dengue and meningitis, along with immunisation schedules and product recommendations for Covid-19. It also issued key immunisation programmatic recommendations on polio, Immunisation Agenda 2030, and recovering the immunisation programme.
The R21 vaccine is the second malaria vaccine recommended by WHO, following the RTS,S/AS01 vaccine, which received a WHO recommendation in 2021.
At least 28 countries in Africa plan to introduce a WHO-recommended malaria vaccine as part of their national immunisation programmes.
Nigeria has seen major progress, but accounts for around 27 per cent of the global burden of malaria cases.
WHO also noted that the RTS,S vaccine will be rolled out in some African countries in early 2024, and the R21 malaria vaccine is expected to become available to countries in mid-2024.
