Cameroon, a Central African country, launched the world’s first nationwide malaria vaccine program.

“Cameroon today launched the RTS,S malaria vaccine into its routine national immunization services, becoming the first country to do so outside the malaria vaccine pilot programme that was carried out in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi. The introduction comes as efforts gather pace to scale up vaccination against the disease in high risk areas in Africa,” the World Health Organization announced.

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From the WHO:

The vaccine is being rolled out across 42 health districts in the country’s 10 regions in public and private health facilities. The launch comes after Cameroon received 331 200 doses of the vaccine in November 2023. More doses are expected in coming weeks.

“The vaccine is an additional tool for malaria control. It has been chosen by the country based on its pre-qualification, ensuring guaranteed quality, efficacy and safety for inclusion in the vaccination programme,” said Dr Shalom Ndoula, Permanent Secretary of the Expanded Programme on Immunization in Cameroon. “It will specifically target all children aged six months as of 31 December 2023.”

In preparation for the launch, World Health Organization (WHO) and other partners including GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, UNICEF, Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Clinton Health Access Initiative supported the national health authorities to strengthen key vaccine introduction measures. For an effective vaccine introduction, it is essential that countries put in place comprehensive preparations that include adopting the national vaccination policy and guidelines, integrating the new vaccine into the delivery schedule of other vaccines and health interventions, developing an operational roll out plan, training of healthcare workers, investing in infrastructure, technical capacity, vaccine storage, community engagement and demand generation, and ensuring formative supervision, monitoring and evaluation of the process to ensure quality vaccine delivery.

“The launch of the malaria vaccine marks a significant step in the prevention and control of the disease, especially in protecting children against severe disease and death,” said Dr Phanuel Habimana, WHO Representative in Cameroon. “We’re committed to supporting the national health authorities to ensure an effective rollout of the malaria vaccine together with scale up of other malaria control measures.”

“Cameroon has become the first country to introduce the RTS,S malaria vaccine into its routine immunisation programme. With 20 countries across Africa set to introduce the vaccine this year alone, this marks a historic boost to the global fight against malaria,” Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance wrote.

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From CIDRAP:

In advance of today’s launch, the country began receiving doses of RTS,S, a vaccine developed by GSK that has been in the making for more than 30 years, in November. The vaccine was part of a pilot program in a handful of other African countries, but is now poised for a broader rollout across that continent, which bears the world’s biggest burden, especially its children.

The country’s malaria vaccine program, with a four-dose schedule, targets all children who were 6 months or older on December 31, 2023.

The WHO published footage of the first baby to receive the shot.

However, 100 Percent Fed Up noted that not all researchers agree the RTS,S malaria vaccine is ‘safe and effective.’

WHO Recommends New Malaria Vaccine

From our prior report:

In a paper published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, a team of researchers warned about the dangers of the RTS,S malaria vaccine.

The researchers concluded that the findings in the malaria vaccine implementation programme (MVIP) “do not rule out the possibility of increased mortality among vaccinated girls compared with vaccinated boys, as observed in the phase 3 studies.”

“Three significant safety signals were identified, related to meningitis, cerebral malaria, and female-specific all-cause mortality,” the researchers noted.

The researchers concluded that the “claimed impact of the MVIP on mortality is not based on enough scientific evidence.”

The vaccine’s impact on severe malaria was estimated to be around 30%.

The paper’s final conclusions stated:

We have made several recommendations for the way forward (panel). Populations affected by malaria and their policy makers have waited for a vaccine for about half a century. The enthusiasm greeting the WHO recommendation of RTS,S is understandable. Unfortu-nately, the available data suggest that this vaccine, like some other non-live vaccines,16, 17 might increase all-cause mortality in girls to the extent that its deployment could lead to a net increase in deaths of girls among the recipients.

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