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Africa pins hopes on 'breakthrough' malaria vaccine
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A child gets a malaria vaccination at Yala Sub-County hospital, in Yala October 7, 2021. (AFP/Brian Ongoro)
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ground-breaking vaccine against malaria has stoked hopes in Africa of rolling back a disease that claims hundreds of thousands of lives a year, many of them youngsters.
Since 2019, Ghana, Kenya and Malawi have immunised more than 800,000 children under a pilot programme using the RTS,S vaccine.
It is the first to show significant protection against the parasite-borne disease, cutting the risk of severe malaria by 30 percent, trials have shown.
On October 9, the World Health Organization (WHO), after sifting through the results of the pilot scheme, recommended the vaccine for children aged above five months in locations with malaria risk.
Some 260,000 children under five die from malaria each year in Africa, which accounts for about 90 percent of the global caseload.
"From a scientific perspective this is a massive breakthrough," said Pedro Alonso, director of the WHO Global Malaria Programme.
Djermakoye Hadiza Jackou, coordinator of Niger's National Malaria Control Programme (PNLP), said the WHO announcement was "welcomed with great joy."
