The world's first vaccine against malaria is put into use in Africa

The European Drug Administration (EMA) has approved the introduction of the world's first malaria vaccine called Mosquirix in Africa.

The world's first vaccine against malaria

The world's first malaria vaccine , called Mosquirix or RTS, S. The European Drug Administration approved the introduction of the vaccine after a positive assessment of the results of the Mosquirix injection test for tens of thousands of children at 7. African countries since 1998.

Mosquirix works best for children between the ages of 5 and 17 months of age - who receive 3 doses of vaccine over 3 months and are given a booster shot at the age of 20 months. Also with this age group, the injection of Mosquirix has helped reduce the number of severe malaria cases by a third in four years.

Mosquirix is ​​prepared and produced by British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (abbreviated GSK), funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation . Mosquirix is ​​the first vaccine to work against human malaria and is specifically developed for children in Africa. This may be the first malaria vaccine to be licensed.

GSK CEO Andrew Witty said: ' This is the first vaccine in the world against any kind of parasite. It is not only the first vaccine against malaria. It has never been done before. And 10 years ago, scientific perspectives still said that it was an impossible task.

Earlier this year, a clinical trial in 7 African countries gave both positive and disappointing results.

The vaccine has the most protective effect on children aged 5-17 months who received 3 doses of vaccine 1 month apart plus 1 booster dose at 20 months of age. In this research group, the number of serious malaria cases decreased by one third within 4 years.

However, over time, the effectiveness of vaccines decreases, making the nasal booster become extremely necessary. Without this booster injection, the incidence of severe malaria will not decrease during the trial period.

Another disappointing result is that the vaccine does not effectively protect younger children from severe malaria.

This puts WHO in a dilemma when deciding whether or not to deploy mass-produced Mosquirix vaccines, because the vaccine is nearly as inefficient as the scientific community expects.