The Chairperson of the Southern African Development Community`s Malaria Elimination Eight (E8) initiative ministerial committee, South African Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla, has described the approval of first malaria vaccine, called Mosquirix, by World Health Organisation (WHO) as a breakthrough that will accelerate plans to eliminate malaria.
According to Phaahla, the Mosquirix vaccine, scientifically known as RTS,S/AS01, is a significant addition to the current set of complementary malaria prevention tools already available.
“We see this malaria vaccine as a landmark development in the history of the fight against the spread of this deadly infectious disease, which kills about half a million people every year including 260,000 children below the age of five years, most of them in Sub-Saharan Africa,” said Phaahla.
He added that “we will do all we can to ensure that the vaccine can reach our shores, where it is required to protect children from severe disease and death”.
The E8 is a coalition of eight countries working across national borders to eliminate malaria in Southern Africa by 2030.
Former Namibian Health Minister and current Malaria Elimination 8 Ambassador, Dr Richard Kamwi, said: “This type of news is good news for Sub-Saharan Africa, but more importantly for SADC Elimination 8. This is what we have been looking for all along. We see the vaccine as a game-changer to malaria elimination,” he said.
After decades of research and development in searching for a malaria vaccine, WHO has made a historic recommendation to endorse and scale up manufacturing and deployment of the first-ever promising malaria vaccine for children under the age of five years in regions with moderate to high plasmodium falciparum malaria transmission.
The development of the first-generation vaccine against a human parasite is a huge achievement, because parasites are more complex than viruses or bacteria and scientists have been working towards this goal for over 30 years.
WHO regional director for Africa Dr Matshidiso Moeti said the vaccine offers a glimmer of hope.
“We have long hoped for an effective malaria vaccine and now for the first time ever we have such a vaccine recommended for widespread use.
“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,” said Moeti.
Senior lecturer from the department of global health at Stellenbosch University, Dr Jo Barnes called malaria a heavy burden of disease.
Africa is the continent worst affected by malaria (94% of cases occur in the continent) and the worst affected age group is children.
“In Africa more than 260 000 children died from the disease in 2019. This is a heavy burden of disease and loss of life,” Barnes said.
According to the WHO, 229 million cases of malaria are reported each year, 94 percent of which are from Africa. Annually, the disease is responsible for 409 000 deaths globally.Namibia recorded 12 507 malaria cases and 40 deaths in 2020. – Agencies