2023-10-02 18:43:00
By Le Figaro with AFP
Published yesterday at 8:43 p.m., Updated yesterday at 8:43 p.m.
Malaria vaccine at Lumumba Sub-County Hospital in Kisumu, Kenya, July 1, 2022. BAZ RATNER / REUTERS
Malaria causes fever, headaches and chills, becoming a serious or even fatal condition if left untreated. In 2021, it caused the death of 619,000 people worldwide.
The World Health Organization (WHO) gave the green light on Monday October 2 to a second vaccine for children.safe and effective» against malaria, a disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. “As a malaria researcher, I dreamed of the day when we would have a safe and effective malaria vaccine. Now we have two», Declared at a press conference the head of the WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
L’OMS «recommends a second vaccine called R21/Matrix-M to prevent malaria in children at risk of contracting the disease”, following the advice of its Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and its Malaria Management Policy Advisory Group (MPAG).
This very old disease, which causes fever, headaches and chills to become a serious, even fatal condition, in the absence of treatment, caused the death of 619,000 people worldwide in 2021. Other WHO experts are still evaluating manufacturing arrangements and other regulatory aspects, explained the director of the immunization and vaccines department at WHO, Dr Kate O’Brien.
Authorized in Ghana, Nigeria and Burkina Faso
Once this final green light is obtained, Unicef and the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) will be able to administer the vaccine, which is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India. However, its use has already been authorized by the authorities in Ghana, Nigeria and Burkina Faso.
In 2021, another vaccine, “RTS,S”, produced by British pharmaceutical giant GSK, had become the first vaccine to be recommended by the WHO to prevent malaria in children in areas where transmission of the disease is moderate to high. The two vaccines have similar effectiveness rates of around 75% when administered under the same conditions. “Costing between 2 and 4 US dollars (1.90 to 3.81 euros) per dose, this vaccine is comparable to other recommended methods against malaria and other childhood vaccines», Specified Doctor Tedros.
«T“very big step forward”
It therefore constitutes a “very big step forward» for the dozens of countries that want to obtain serums against this scourge, indicated Dr. O’Brien. By 2026, WHO and its partners expect demands of up to 60 million doses per year. By 2030, this figure is expected to reach up to 100 million, Gavi said in a statement. The pilot programs for the introduction of “RTS,S» in three African countries – Ghana, Kenya and Malawi – have enabled more than 1.7 million children to receive at least one dose of vaccine since 2019.
In July, the WHO, Gavi and UNICEF jointly announced that 18 million doses of this anti-malaria vaccine will be allocated to 12 African countries in 2023-2025. Caused by a parasite transmitted by mosquitoes, malaria remains a formidable scourge, particularly for African children, due in particular to growing resistance to treatment. This is why Professor Megan Greischar, from Cornell University in the United States, emphasizes that a vaccine will not be enough to eradicate the disease.
«In areas where malaria is common, mosquito resistance to insecticides and parasite resistance to drugs erodes public health progress and makes existing tools less effective“, she stressed, adding that “having one more vaccine in the toolbox is good news“. The vast majority of cases and deaths occur in Africa.
This progress is not enough
«Since 2000, malaria deaths have more than halved and we have successfully eliminated malaria in many parts of the world» But this progress is not enough, noted Dr Tedros.
WHO vaccine experts also recommended a new dengue vaccine, Qdenga, for 6-16 year olds living in areas where the disease is a significant public health problem. A new vaccine against meningitis, called Men5CV, which protects against five species of bacteria responsible for the disease, has also been given the green light.
As for the fight against Covid-19, these experts judged that for most vaccines, a single dose was now sufficient for the primary vaccination against the disease given that most people have already been infected at least once .
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