Malawi has begun a large-scale vaccination of children against malaria.
The vaccination which is going to be administered on a large scale, will be the first of its kind since the World Health Organisation endorsed the widespread use of the RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine in October 2021.
The Cable reported that the endorsement is coming after a two-year vaccination programme, which involved more than 800,000 children in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi.
The vaccine, which is recommended for children from five months of age to around 18 months, has an efficacy of 39 percent.
The first phase of the vaccination in Malawi is expected to cover 11 of the country’s 28 districts.
In a tweet on Tuesday, the WHO in Malawi said the expansion of access to the malaria vaccine will enable more children at risk of malaria to benefit from an additional prevention tool.
WHO tweeted, “Malawi has expanded access to the first malaria vaccine! The expansion of the RTS,S Malaria vaccine, into the 11 districts that participated in the malaria vaccine implementation program (MVIP) has been launched today. The vaccine offers a glimmer hope for Malawi.”
According to BBC, Malawi’s national malaria control programme manager, Michael Kayange, said, although the vaccine has low efficacy, “in malaria control, there is no single intervention that does it all.
“We’re not saying that the malaria vaccine has come to eliminate malaria but it’s one tool towards malaria elimination.”
