A dozen African countries will receive 18 million doses of the world’s first malaria vaccine

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Disclosures:
O’Brien reports no relevant financial disclosures. Maphosa is employed by GAVI.

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Key takeaways:

• Doses of the world’s first malaria vaccine will be delivered to 12 African countries in late 2023.
• At least 28 countries in Africa have expressed interest in the vaccine.

A total of 18 million doses of the world’s first malaria vaccine will be allocated to 12 countries in Africa, WHO announced Wednesday.

The 12 countries — Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Niger, Sierra Leone and Uganda — are expected to start receiving vaccine doses during the last quarter of 2023 and to begin rolling them out in early 2024, according to WHO.

“The malaria vaccine is a breakthrough to improve child health and child survival, and families and communities, rightly, want this vaccine for their children,” Kate O’Brien, MD, MPH, director of immunization, vaccines and biologicals at WHO, said in a press release.

“This first allocation of malaria doses is prioritized for children at the highest risk of dying of malaria,” she said.

There were an estimated 247 million cases of malaria globally in 2021, including an estimated 619,000 deaths, according to WHO. About 95% of all malaria cases and 96% of malaria deaths are in Africa, with children aged younger than 5 years accounting for roughly 80% of malaria deaths. Just over half of global malaria deaths occur in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and Niger.

WHO recommended widespread use of the vaccine, GSK’s RTS,S/AS01, in 2021 after it showed promise in a 2-year pilot program in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi.

According to UNICEF, the first vaccine shipments later this year will make about 4 million doses available early next year. The agency expects 6 million doses to be available for shipment over the course of 2024 and an additional 8 million doses to be available in 2025.

WHO, UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance expect GSK to produce about 15 million doses per year from 2026 through 2028, based on recommendations and agreements already in place.

“This vaccine has the potential to be very impactful in the fight against malaria, and when broadly deployed alongside other interventions, it can prevent tens of thousands of future deaths every year,” Thabani Maphosa, Gavi’s managing director of country programs, said in a press release.

“While we work with manufacturers to ramp up supply, we need to make sure the doses that we do have are used as effectively as possible, which means applying all the learnings from our pilot programs as we broaden out to a new total of 12 countries ,” Maphosa said.

Another malaria vaccine has also shown promise in phase 1 and phase 2 trials, and began enrolling participants in a phase 3 trial in 2022.

References:

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