Cameroon inaugurated the first malaria immunization scheme to be administered statewide and as a matter of routine on Monday, in a “historic” move characterized by the WHO.
According to the World Health Organization, mosquito-borne diseases kill over 600,000 people each year, with Africa accounting for 95 percent of the total.
Children under the age of five account for more than 80% of all deaths on the continent.
Following a pilot phase, the RTS,S vaccine is being pushed out on a large basis throughout Africa, beginning in Cameroon.
Noah Ngah, six months old, was the first to receive the injection at a hospital in the village of Soa, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the capital, Yaounde.
Cheered and encouraged by the nurses, the infant received the jab — much to the relief of his mother, who was waiting to have his twin sister vaccinated too.
“Some parents are reticent but I know that vaccines are good for children,” their mother Helene Akono told AFP.
It is one of 42 priority immunization centers throughout the huge central African nation of 28 million people.
According to the government, the vaccine would be provided free of charge and in a systematic manner to all children under the age of six months, along with other mandatory or recommended immunizations.
In November, the WHO, UNICEF, and the Gavi vaccine alliance hailed the decision as “a historic step towards broader vaccination against one of the deadliest diseases for African children”.
Saving lives
More than 300,000 doses of RTS,S, the first malaria vaccine authorized by the UN’s WHO, arrived in Yaounde in late November.
It took two months to plan Monday’s launch.
In a pilot phase that began in 2019, almost two million children in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi were immunized.
The initiative resulted in significant decreases in severe malaria sickness and hospitalizations.
Ghana’s Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, stated that the under-five malaria death rate has plummeted from 1.7% in 2008 to 0.06 percent in 2022, and he described vaccines as a game changer.
“It’s not only cost-effective, but very efficient and an effective way to ensure the survival of children,”.
According to the WHO, the campaign’s coordinator, Cameroon is the world’s first large-scale and methodical programme. Gavi is mostly funding the effort.
“In Cameroon, 30 percent of consultations are linked to malaria,” Aurelia Nguyen, chief programme manager of the Gavi vaccine alliance, told AFP.
“Having a preventative tool like the vaccine will free up the health system and result in fewer hospitalisations and deaths.”
Burkina Faso, Liberia, Niger, and Sierra Leone plan to follow suit with large-scale vaccination campaigns.
According to Willis Akhwale, special adviser of the End Malaria Council Kenya, the deployment was a relief but not a “silver bullet”.
“The efficacy, much as it is saving lives, is not 100 percent, but even at 40 percent it’s saving lives and especially at the age bracket of two years old when you tend to get severe malaria,” he told AFP.