The world's first malaria vaccine should be given to children across Africa, the World Health Organisation recommended Wednesday, a move that officials hope will spur stalled efforts to curb the spread of the parasitic disease.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called it 'a historic moment' after a meeting in which two of the UN health agency's expert advisory groups endorsed using the vaccine.
The world's first malaria vaccine should be given to children across Africa, the World Health Organisation recommended Wednesday, a move that officials hope will spur stalled efforts to curb the spread of the parasitic disease.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called it 바카라a historic moment" after a meeting in which two of the UN health agency's expert advisory groups endorsed using the vaccine.
"Today's recommendation offers a glimmer of hope for the continent, which shoulders the heaviest burden of the disease. And we expect many more African children to be protected from malaria and grow into healthy adults,바카라 said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO's Africa director.
WHO said its decision was based largely on results from ongoing research in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi that tracked more than 800,000 children who have received the vaccine since 2019.
The malaria vaccine known as Mosquirix was developed by GlaxoSmithKline in 1987. While it's the first to be authorised, it does have challenges: the vaccine is only about 30 per cent effective, requires up to four doses and its protection fades after several months.
Still, given the extremely high burden of malaria in Africa 바카라 where the majority of the world's more than 200 million cases a year and 400,000 deaths a year occur 바카라 scientists say the vaccine could still have a major impact.
바카라This is a huge step forward,바카라 said Julian Rayner, director of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, who was not part of the WHO decision.
바카라It's an imperfect vaccine, but it will still stop hundreds of thousands of children from dying.바카라
Rayner said the vaccine's impact on the spread of the mosquito-borne disease was still unclear, but pointed to coronavirus vaccines as an encouraging example.
바카라The last two years have given us a very nuanced understanding of how important vaccines are in saving lives and reducing hospitalizations, even if they don't directly reduce transmission,바카라 he said.
Dr Alejandro Cravioto, chair of the WHO vaccine group that made the recommendation, said designing a shot against malaria was particularly difficult because it is a parasitic disease spread by mosquitoes.
바카라We're confronted with extraordinarily complex organisms,바카라 he said. 바카라We are not yet in reach of a highly efficacious vaccine, but what we have now is a vaccine that can be deployed and that is safe.바카라
WHO said side effects were rare, but sometimes included a fever that could result in temporary convulsions.
Sian Clarke, co-director of the Malaria Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the vaccine would be a useful addition to other tools against the disease that might have exhausted their utility after decades of use, like bed nets and insecticides.
바카라In some countries where it gets really hot, children just sleep outside, so they can't be protected by a bed net,바카라 Clarke explained. 바카라So obviously if they've been vaccinated, they will still be protected.바카라
Clarke added that in the last few years little significant progress has been made against malaria.
바카라If we're going to decrease the disease burden now, we need something else,바카라 she explained.
Azra Ghani, chair of infectious diseases at Imperial College London, said she and colleagues estimate that the introduction of the malaria vaccine in African children might result in a 30 per cent reduction overall: up to 8 million fewer cases and as many as 40,000 fewer deaths per year.
바카라For people not living in malaria countries, a 30 per cent reduction might not sound like much. But for the people living in those areas, malaria is one of their top concerns,바카라 Ghani said.
바카라A 30 per cent reduction will save a lot of lives and will save mothers (from) bringing in their children to health centers and swamping the health system.바카라
She said the WHO guidance would hopefully be a 바카라first step바카라 to making better malaria vaccines. Ghani said efforts to produce a second-generation malaria vaccine might be given a boost by the messenger RNA technology used to make two of the most successful COVID-19 vaccines, those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
바카라We've seen much higher antibody levels from the mRNA vaccines, and they can also be adapted very quickly,바카라 Ghani said, noting that BioNTech recently said it would begin researching a possible malaria shot. 바카라It's impossible to say how that may affect a malaria vaccine, but we definitely need new options to fight it.바카라