WHO Approves Malaria Vaccine For Children, Expert Says Next Challenge Is Price And Distribution

Illustration of malaria management in Angola. (Wikimedia Commons/USAID Africa Bureau)

JAKARTA - JAKARTA - The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday that the only approved vaccine against malaria could be given widely to African children to fight the disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year.

The WHO recommendation is for RTS,S or Mosquirix, a vaccine developed by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Since 2019, 2.3 million doses of Mosquirix have been administered to infants in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi in a large-scale pilot program coordinated by WHO.

"This is a vaccine developed in Africa by African scientists and we are very proud," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, citing Reuters on October 7.

"Using this vaccine in addition to existing tools to prevent malaria could save tens of thousands of young people every year," he added, referring to anti-malaria measures such as bed netting and spraying.

Meanwhile, experts say the challenge now is to mobilize financing for vaccine production and distribution to some of the world's poorest countries.

GSK has currently committed to producing 15 million doses of Mosquirix annually, in addition to the 10 million doses donated to the WHO pilot program, by 2028 with production costs plus a margin of no more than 5 percent.

A global market study led by the WHO this year projected that demand for malaria vaccines would be 50 to 110 million doses per year by 2030 if used in areas with moderate to high disease transmission.

Meanwhile, the GAVI vaccine alliance, a global public-private partnership, will consider in December whether and how to fund this malaria vaccination program.

"As we have seen from the COVID-19 vaccine, where there is political will, there is funding available to ensure that the vaccine is scaled up to the level required," said Kate O'Brien, director of WHO's Department of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biology.

A source familiar with vaccine development planning said a price per dose has not been set, but will be confirmed after GAVI's funding decision and once there is a clear demand for the vaccine.

To note, malaria is far more deadly than COVID-19 in Africa. It killed 386.000 Africans in 2019, according to WHO estimates, compared with 212.000 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 in the past 18 months.

The WHO says 94 percent of malaria cases and deaths occur in Africa, a continent of 1.3 billion people. This preventable disease is caused by a parasite that is transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected mosquito; Symptoms include fever, vomiting and fatigue.