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Testing of the world's first malaria vaccines was launched in Malawi as part of a major World Health Organization (WHO) pilot project to provide partial protection against the disease.
360,000 children are expected to receive injectable vaccines in the year following the launch of the pilot project in Ghana and Kenya, where children aged 5 to 17 months would be injected.
WHO said health ministries in these countries decided where vaccines would be used.
The RTS, S vaccine, which had prevented about four out of ten cases of malaria in clinical trials, caused the immune system to attack the malaria parasite transmitted by mosquito bites, said the government. WHO.
"We need new solutions to put malaria control back on track and this vaccine offers us a promising tool to achieve this. The malaria vaccine has the potential to save tens of thousands of children, "said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
WHO declared in 2018 – when the pilot program was announced – that Ghana, Malawi and Kenya were selected for the pilot program as they continue to record a high number of malaria cases despite malaria programs large scale and well managed.
The vaccine would be administered four times: once a month for three months, then a fourth dose 18 months later.
Also known as Mosquirix, the vaccine was created by scientists of the British pharmaceutical giant GSK in 1987. It has undergone years of testing and has been supported by many organizations, including PATH, a nonprofit organization.
The pilot project is funded by Gavi; Alliance Vaccine; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; UNITAID; WHO and GSK.
Global efforts to fight malaria have resulted in a 62 per cent decrease in the number of deaths between 2000 and 2015, but the disease still affects more than 200 million people each year, killing nearly 500,000 people, most of whom are children.
The WHO said the vaccine would be used in addition to insecticides and mosquito nets, which are currently the two main prevention methods with limited impact.
Other measures were taken to fight against malaria, the last in September 2018, when the government of Burkina Faso announced that it had given the green light for the spread of genetically modified mosquitoes in the Burkinabe village. from Bana.
The program was part of Target Malaria, which is led by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It was also an effort to use bioengineering to eradicate the spread of malaria by reducing the number of disease-spreading insects.
About 10,000 mosquitoes are expected to be in the atmosphere and were mostly men. They are sterile and if they bite, they will not release any genetically manipulated material. Scientific Research.
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