R21 vaccine: Children in Ivory Coast receive first doses of new malaria vaccine, hailed as major milestone

CNN
—

Children Ivory Coast received the first dose of a relatively inexpensive new vaccine malaria The vaccine was rolled out on Monday in what is being hailed as a major milestone in the fight against one of the world’s deadliest diseases.

of R21 VaccineThe vaccine, developed by the University of Oxford’s Jenner Institute and the Serum Institute of India (SII), will be sent to several African countries and is due to be administered in South Sudan on Tuesday, Oxford University said in a statement to CNN.

vaccine Professor Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford, who led the vaccine development, said in an interview with BBC Radio on Monday that the vaccine would cost less than $4 per dose, that it would be “realistic to administer tens of millions of doses in the future”, and that it would be highly effective in young children, at 75 to 80 per cent.

According to World Health Organization (WHO) modelling, widespread introduction of the R21 vaccine and its cousin, the RTS,S vaccine, could prevent up to 500,000 child deaths each year.

Malaria is spread by certain mosquitoes and is preventable and treatable, but according to the WHO, it will kill around 608,000 people worldwide in 2022. Around 95% of these deaths occur in Africa, with children under the age of five accounting for the entire death toll. It accounts for approximately 80% of malaria deaths across the African continent.

According to a statement from Oxford University, SIII has already produced more than 25 million doses of the vaccine and has committed to producing up to 100 million doses per year, a scale that would make the vaccine affordable.

The university said it had enough supply of the vaccine to start with injecting it into 250,000 children under the age of two in Côte d’Ivoire, and that the vaccine has also been approved for use in Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic.

R21 is used in combination with the RTS,S vaccine, which has already been administered to more than two million children in a four-year trial program in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi and reduced overall mortality by 13 percent, according to the study. UNICEF.

Both of these vaccines Who Alongside other prevention strategies such as bed nets, it is expected to have a huge positive impact on public health.

Hill added, “There’s still a lot of work to be done to prepare people across the country, especially as we aim to distribute millions of doses of vaccine starting this year.”

“It’s a three-dose vaccine, usually given at five, six and seven months of age, followed by a booster dose a year later. This is not the time other vaccines are usually given, so training is needed in these countries, which are primarily lower-income countries.”