Cameroon launches the world’s first systematic vaccination against malaria

More than 300,000 doses of the vaccine from the British pharmaceutical group GSK were delivered to Cameroon on November 21.

A “historic step”, according to the WHO. Cameroon launched, on Monday January 22, the world’s first systematic and large-scale vaccination campaign against malaria. More than 300,000 doses of the RTS,S anti-malaria vaccine from the British pharmaceutical group GSK, the first to have been validated and recommended by the WHO, were delivered to Cameroon on November 21.

It took two months to organize the start of this campaign during which the antimalaria injection is offered free of charge, according to the government, and systematically to all children under six months of age, at the same time as other traditional vaccines.

More than 600,000 deaths each year

Malaria, also called malaria, is a disease transmitted to humans through the bites of certain types of mosquitoes. It kills more than 600,000 people each year, 95% of them in Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). And on the continent, children under 5 years old account for more than 80% of deaths.

RTS,S has been tested since 2019 in “pilot programs” in three African countries, Kenya, Ghana and Malawi, in a limited number of locations. The pilot program had “resulted in a spectacular 13% reduction in all-cause mortality among children old enough to receive the vaccine, as well as a substantial reduction in severe forms of malaria and hospitalizations”concluded the WHO in November.