October 10, 2021 • 4 mins
Some incredible science news this week with the world's first malaria vaccine approved for use on children in Africa.
It's the first vaccine ever developed against a parasitic human disease.
The RTS,S vaccine, also known as Mosquirix, has been administered to more than 800,000 children in a pilot in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi since 2019.
It's not perfect and in efficacy results from a 4-year trial found it prevents only 39% of malaria cases and 29% of severe malaria cases among small children in Africa.
However when combined with antimalarial drugs there was a 70% reduction in hospitalisation or death in the children. Those results have just been published in the Journal of New England Medicine.
There is still the challenge of funding to come - GSK have promised to sell this at cost +5% which is a huge discount, but as Malaria is rife in incredibly poor countries, it's still unknown how the purchase and distribution will be funded.
LISTEN ABOVE
It's the first vaccine ever developed against a parasitic human disease.
The RTS,S vaccine, also known as Mosquirix, has been administered to more than 800,000 children in a pilot in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi since 2019.
It's not perfect and in efficacy results from a 4-year trial found it prevents only 39% of malaria cases and 29% of severe malaria cases among small children in Africa.
However when combined with antimalarial drugs there was a 70% reduction in hospitalisation or death in the children. Those results have just been published in the Journal of New England Medicine.
There is still the challenge of funding to come - GSK have promised to sell this at cost +5% which is a huge discount, but as Malaria is rife in incredibly poor countries, it's still unknown how the purchase and distribution will be funded.
LISTEN ABOVE
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