2024-01-28 18:48:53
Every minute a child under the age of five dies from malaria. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 600,000 people worldwide die from the disease every year. Most of them are African children under the age of five.
‘Huge step forward’
“This is definitely a milestone,” Teun Bousema told RTL News. He is professor of epidemiology of tropical infectious diseases at Radboud university medical center. “It’s a huge step forward. This will save many lives.”
The vaccine has been forty years in the making. This is because malaria has many different manifestations, Bousema explains. “It is therefore difficult as humans to build up immunity against malaria and also to develop an effective vaccine.”
After successful pilots in Malawi, Kenya and Ghana, the vaccination campaign is now being rolled out on a large scale. The campaign kicked off in Cameroon this week. Nineteen more countries in Africa will follow in the coming months.
Four doses are required for the vaccine to work optimally. Research shows that children are then 33 percent protected. That sounds disappointing, but Bousema points out that 200 million people get malaria every year and hundreds of thousands of children die. “This vaccine can prevent almost 15 percent of total child deaths in the age group most vulnerable to malaria.”
So you would expect Cameroonians to come en masse to get a vaccine. But images from the Reuters news agency show health workers twiddling their thumbs. Journalists from the news agency saw a handful of mothers with children enter.
“Apparently there has not been a good information campaign,” says Africa correspondent Sophie van Leeuwen. “It seems like the government has failed here.” The lack of information is also mentioned by a director of a hospital in Cameroon. “I would have liked to see more attention paid to the vaccine,” she told Reuters.
Cooled backpack
Van Leeuwen emphasizes that the rollout of the vaccine takes time. “If people see that their child dies of malaria and the neighbor’s child does not, then that could possibly have an effect.”
Wouter Booij, spokesperson and emergency specialist for Unicef Netherlands, confirms that it takes time to ensure that more parents have their children vaccinated. “We know that vaccination campaigns work if we push hard.” The aid organization is involved in the purchase and distribution of malaria vaccines. Unicef also provides information about the importance of vaccinations, for example through local media.
Malaria researcher Bousema says that people in Africa are interested in a shot. “The vaccination rate in African countries is very good. It is a different story for conflict areas, but in stable areas vaccination is not a problem.” Booij: “In extreme cases, aid workers go on foot to the most remote places with a cooled backpack.”
A second malaria vaccine was recently approved by the WHO. This R21 vaccine was developed by the University of Oxford and should be on the market around June. The first results are promising, although Bousema is cautious. “This new vaccine seems at least as effective, but a really good comparison between the vaccines has not yet been made. However, the R21 vaccine is cheaper and easier to make.”
The economic damage in Africa due to malaria is enormous, says Bousema. “A conservative estimate is that malaria costs the continent of Africa 30 billion dollars (almost 28 billion euros, ed.) every year.” This includes hospital and medicine costs and costs that arise because parents cannot go to work. “Malaria can also cause serious residual damage for the rest of your life,” says the malaria researcher. He warns that preventive measures such as a mosquito net are still desperately needed.
Last week there was more good news in the fight against malaria. Cape Verde reported that it was malaria-free. The island off the coast of West Africa had been without malaria cases for three years. Algeria was declared malaria-free in 2019.
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