By Daniel Itai
In a historic milestone, 12 African countries will receive 18 million doses of the first-ever malaria vaccine over the next two years. The countries are Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Niger, Sierra Leone and Uganda.
The vaccine doses are supplied by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The first doses are expected to arrive in the countries by the end of 2023, and the vaccination campaigns will start by early 2024.
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Malaria is one of Africa’s deadliest diseases, killing nearly half a million children under five every year. It also accounts for about 95 percent of global malaria cases and 96 percent of deaths in 2021.
“This vaccine has the potential to be very impactful in the fight against malaria. When broadly deployed alongside other interventions, it can prevent tens of thousands of future deaths every year. While we work with manufacturers to help ramp up supply, we need to make sure the doses that we have are used as effectively as possible. This means applying all the learnings from our pilot programmes as we expand to a total of 12 countries,” said Thabani Maphosa, Managing Director of Country Programmes Delivery at Gavi.
The global demand for malaria vaccines is estimated to reach 40 to 60 million doses by 2026 and grow to 80 to 100 million doses per year by 2030.
