Hope on the Horizon: Malaria Vaccine to Reach Cameroon’s Population in 2024
Archibong UduakNovember 30, 20231 Mins read277 
Following the arrival of the first consignment of malaria vaccines in Cameroon on Wednesday, November 22 2023, the United Nations announced the imminent broadening of malaria immunization across Africa.
This makes Cameroon the first African Nation to receive the Vaccine after a pilot trial saw Nations like Ghana and Kenya involved in it in 2019.
Over two million children have been injected in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi as part of a trial program since 2019, resulting in substantial declines in severe malaria illness and hospital stays.
Another 1.7 million doses are scheduled to be sent to Burkina Faso, Liberia, Niger, and Sierra Leone in some weeks to come.
Nigeria, despite its population and the enormous need for this vaccine, has yet to get a look.
Very many African nations are wrapping up plans to incorporate malaria vaccines into their various National immunization programs, with the first doses scheduled to be delivered in January-March 2024.
In 2021, Africa accounted for nearly 95 percent of worldwide malaria cases and 96 percent of malaria-related fatalities.
Annual worldwide malaria mortality declined considerably between 2000 and 2019, when it stood at about 568,000, but increased by 10% to 625,000 in 2020 as the COVID-19 challenge hampered prevention and treatment efforts.
Deaths fell marginally to 619,000 in 2021, with children under the age of five accounting for 77% of all deaths. Meanwhile, the worldwide malaria case count increased marginally to 247 million.
The plan is now expanding, with 331,200 doses of RTS,S – the first malaria vaccine recommended by the World Health Organisation – arriving in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde on Tuesday.
The RTS,S vaccine protects against plasmodium falciparum, the most lethal malaria parasite in the world and the most common in Africa.
It is given in a four-dose regimen that begins at the age of five months. GSK, the manufacturer, has provided the Vaccines.
In a joint statement, the WHO, UNICEF, and the Gavi vaccine alliance said the delivery “signals that scale-up of malaria vaccination across the highest-risk areas on the African continent will begin shortly.”
According to them, it was “a historic step towards broader vaccination against one of the deadliest diseases for African children”.
Read: Breaking News: Anthrax Claims Lives of 17 People in Uganda
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How is this ‘hope’ for a vaccine with about 80℅ efficacy that has to be given 4 times initially (how many people get malaria up to 4 times a year?) to infants and still DOESN’T confer prolonged immunity?
Secondly, you already pointed out that cases have been on steady decline (before the vaccine). What is the reason, and why isn’t effort geared towards promoting that instead?
More still, the freaking disease is curable. They could just make the cure (100% verified remember) available to affected areas in similarly large shipments. You would need far less doses to tackle the malaria problem (cuz not everyone will have it) than the mass injection of populations with an experimental drug.
We’ve always been their favourite guinea pigs.
BTW, y’all should be critical in your reporting instead of just parroting whatever these guys say. What’s the point of re-reporting western dogma? Why should I come here instead of there? In Josh2funny’s voice, “Think abourrit.”