WHO to test first malaria vaccine in Africa next year

The World Health Organization announced on Monday that it had permission to try the first malaria vaccine in the field in real-world settings next year.

The announcement came on the eve of World Malaria Day.

WHO said in a press release, ''The injectible vaccine, RTS,S, was developed to protect young children from the most deadly form of malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum.

RTS,S will be assessed in the pilot programme as a complementary malaria control tool that could potentially be added to the core package of WHO-recommended measures for malaria prevention.''

The mosquito-borne illness had taken a toll of 429,000 human lives in 2015, and hundreds of millions got sick with a malaria infection every year. Some never recovered fully.

While tremendous progress had been made in fighting the disease, from 2000 to 2015 a 62-per cent reduction in malaria deaths, was seen according to the WHO. There was also a 21 per cent reduction in the number of cases.

There had been fewer deaths mostly due to better mosquito control and disease awareness. There was also a sustained effort to reach the right medicine to the right populations, according to experts.

There were, however, gaps in prevention coverage, especially in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, where about 43 per cent of people who were at risk for the disease had no access to mosquito protection like bed nets or bug spray, according to the WHO.

Africa was the continent that saw the highest number of malaria cases. The new vaccine would be tested in Kenya, Ghana and Malawi starting in 2018.

The UN health agency also called for boosting efforts to prevent malaria, which remained a major public health threat, killing one child every two minutes worldwide in 2015.

The UN World Health Organization's (WHO) latest report, Malaria Prevention Works, Let's close the gap, spotlighted the critical gaps in prevention coverage, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

''WHO-recommended tools have made a measurable difference in the global malaria fight, but we need a much bigger push for prevention – especially in Africa, which bears the greatest burden of malaria,'' said WHO director-general Margaret Chan.