LAGOS Nigeria
Africa will start talks with the World Health Organisation about getting the first approved malaria vaccine to the continent as soon as possible, the African Union's top health official said on Thursday, amid calls for funding for drugs beyond Covid-19.
John Nkengasong spoke a day
after the WHO said RTS,S - or Mosquirix - developed by British drugmaker
GlaxoSmithKline should be widely given to children in Africa.
Experts said the
recommendation was potentially a major advance against a disease that kills a
quarter of a million African children each year.
"We will be engaging with
GAVI (the vaccine alliance) and WHO in the coming days to understand first of
all the availability of this vaccine," Nkengasong, director of the Africa
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), told an online news
conference.
Calling malaria a major killer
in Africa, Nkengasong urged donors not to play a zero-sum game "where we
fund Covid-19 vaccines and neglect malaria vaccines".
He said it was unclear when
the vaccine will be accessible to the many African countries where malaria is
endemic because the cost per dose is not known and it is not clear how quickly
production can be scaled up.
GSK has to date committed to
produce 15 million doses of Mosquirix annually up to 2028 at a cost of
production plus no more than 5% margin.
A global market study led by
the WHO this year projected demand for a malaria vaccine would be 50 to 110
million doses per year by 2030 if it is deployed in areas with moderate to high
transmission of the disease.
Mosquirix has been 30 years in
the making. Since 2019, 2.3 million doses of Mosquirix have been administered
to infants in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi in a large-scale pilot programme
coordinated by the WHO.
Phoebe Wetende, a 23-year-old hairdresser
who lives in Yala area in Siaya county in Western Kenya told Reuters she had
enrolled her 2-year-old daughter in the trial programme because her family had
suffered frequent malaria infections.
Her daughter received her
fourth and last dose at Yala Sub-County Hospital on Thursday.
"When I was young, my
family was prone to malaria attacks...I could miss school because I am admitted
in hospital," she said. "My aunt suffered cerebral malaria, and it
scared us. She is still under treatment."
Nkengasong noted that by the
end of 2021, malaria will likely have killed many more people in Africa,
especially children, than Covid-19 has this year on the continent.
GAVI will consider in December
whether and how to finance the vaccination programme.
Merit Okorie, a businesswoman in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos, told Reuters she was happy about the new vaccination because it might stop frequent hospital visits.
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