FRIDAY- 8th October, 2021: The World Health Organization, (WHO), has on Wednesday endorsed RTS,S/AS01, a world’s first vaccine for the prevention of malaria.

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that has killed over 400,000 people yearly, mostly African children.

WHO made this decision after the review of a 2019 pilot program, where over two million people in Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, were given trial of the vaccine that was made by a pharmaceutical company called, GSK in 1987.

WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said it was “recommending the broad use of the world’s first malaria vaccine”, after reviewing results from the pilot program.

WHO’s director of Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals, Kate O’Brien said Findings from the vaccine pilot showed it “significantly reduces severe malaria which is the deadly form by 30 percent.”

O’Brien also said the vaccine is “feasible to deliver” and that “it’s also reaching the unreached… Two thirds of children who don’t sleep under a bed net in those countries are now benefiting from the vaccine.”

There have been many vaccines against viruses and bacteria. This is the first time WHO recommended vaccine for human parasite.

The vaccine acts against plasmodium falciparum - one of five malaria parasite species and the deadliest.

The WHO Director of Global Malaria Program, Pedro Alonso said, “From a scientific perspective this is a massive breakthrough,”

Speaking further, Alonso said the RTS,S/AS01 is “a first generation, really important one…, but we hope… it stimulates the field to look for other types of vaccines to completement or go beyond this one.”

WHO regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, commented about the Wednesday’s recommendation that it “offers a glimmer of hope for the continent which shoulders the heaviest burden of the disease.”

On distribution and funding, Kate said, that “…will be the next major step… Then we will be set up for scaling of doses and decisions about where the vaccine will be most useful and how it will be deployed.”

Following the WHO announcement, Gavi vaccine alliance said “global stakeholders, including Gavi, will consider whether and how to finance a new malaria vaccination program for countries in sub-Saharan Africa.”

The WHO also hopes this latest recommendation will encourage scientists to develop more malaria vaccines.