What went right this week: historic malaria vaccine for Africa gets go-ahead, plus more positive news
A Malaria vaccine was given the green light for Africa
Inoculation has been a hot topic for the last 18 months or so, but this time it’s a malaria vaccine, not Covid-19, that’s making headlines.
Although proven effective six years ago, the World Health Organization is now recommending that the vaccine, called RTS,S, be administered across much of Africa. The move comes after pilot immunisation programmes conducted in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi proved a success.
With 94 per cent of the global 229m cases per year being in Africa, the new jab has been widely welcomed by experts, particularly as children are disproportionately affected. More than 260,000 children died from malaria in 2019.
A vaccine for the disease, which is caused by a parasite far more sophisticated than the one that causes Covid-19, (it’s “like comparing a person and a cabbage,” reported the BBC), has evaded the medical community for over a century.
Being able to roll out the vaccine on a mass scale is thus “a historic moment”, said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO.
Image: Victor Nnakwe
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