Between 2023 and 2025, 12 nations in various parts of Africa will each receive 18 million doses of the first-ever RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine.
This information was released in a press release issued jointly on Wednesday by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organisation, and the United Nations Children’s Fund.
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The first vaccination that the World Health Organisation advises using to protect children from malaria in regions with moderate to high malaria transmission is RTS,S/AS01.
“Since 2019, Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi have been delivering the malaria vaccine through the Malaria Vaccine Implementation Programme, coordinated by WHO and funded by Gavi, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and Unitaid.
“The RTS,S/AS01 vaccine has been administered to more than 1.7 million children in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi since 2019 and has been shown to be safe and effective, resulting in a substantial reduction in severe malaria and a fall in child deaths. At least 28 African countries have expressed interest in receiving the malaria vaccine.
“In addition to Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi, the initial 18 million dose allocation will enable nine more countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Uganda, to introduce the vaccine into their routine immunisation programmes for the first time,” the statement read in part.
The first doses of the vaccine are expected to arrive in countries during the last quarter of 2023, with countries starting to roll them out by early 2024.
It stated that this allocation round makes use of the supply of vaccine doses available to Gavi through UNICEF.
