Shipment of the world’s first WHO-recommended malaria vaccine, RTS’s, has arrived in Sierra Leone.
The delivery of 550,000 doses worth US$ 5.5 million, follows the shipment of over 330,000 doses to Cameroon, the first country to receive apart from those previously involved in the malaria vaccine pilot programme.
These shipments signal that scale-up of vaccination against malaria across the highest-risk areas on the African continent will begin shortly. Nearly every minute, a child under five dies of malaria. In 2021, there were 247 million malaria cases globally, which led to 619,000 deaths.
Of these deaths, 77 percent were children under five years of age, mostly in Africa. The Malaria burden is highest on the African continent, which accounts for approximately 95% of global malaria cases and 96% of related deaths in 2021.
Malaria is among the leading causes of morbidity in Sierra Leone, with over two million hospital visits attributed to the disease annually, of which one million cases are of children under five years of age. A further 1.7 million doses of the RTS’s vaccine were allocated to Burkina Faso, Liberia and Niger, with additional African countries set to receive doses in the months ahead.
This reflects the fact that several countries are now in the final stage of preparations for malaria vaccine introduction into routine immunisation programmes, which should see first doses administered in Q1 2024.
Comprehensive preparations are needed to introduce any new vaccine into essential immunisation programmes – such as training healthcare workers, investing in infrastructure, technical capacity, vaccine storage, community engagement and demand and sequencing and integrating rollout alongside the delivery of other vaccines and health interventions.
Delivering the malaria vaccine has the added challenge of a four-dose schedule which requiring careful planning to effectively deliver. These developments mean that broad implementation of malaria vaccination in endemic regions has the potential to be a gamechanger for malaria control efforts and could save tens of thousands of lives each year.
However, malaria vaccines are not a standalone solution. They should be introduced in the context of the WHO-recommended package of malaria control measures which include insecticide-treated nets, indoor residual spraying, intermittent preventive treatment in pregnant women, antimalarials, effective case management, and treatment, all of which have helped to reduce malaria-related deaths since 2000.
Importantly, the MVIP showed that delivering vaccines alongside non-vaccine interventions can reinforce the uptake of other vaccines and the use of insecticide treated nets, and overall boost access to malaria prevention measures.
