by Lauren Hill ‘22

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently approved a new vaccine for malaria, one of the oldest and deadliest infectious diseases in the world. This revolutionary vaccine is the first developed for any parasitic disease and has taken over 30 years to create. Malaria, a disease commonly spread through mosquitoes, is rare in the developed world but runs rampant in Sub-saharan Africa, killing over half a million people including 200,000 children under 5 years old each year. 

However, the new vaccine, created by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has the potential to save over 20,000 lives and prevent more than 5 million cases of the disease in children each year. “The long-awaited malaria vaccine for children is a breakthrough for science, child health and malaria control…[It] could save tens of thousands of young lives each year,” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said.

This vaccine is a big breakthrough in science, as there are many malaria vaccines who have failed to receive approval or were found ineffective through studies. The GSK vaccine has passed clinical trials and concluded that the vaccine has a 30-percent efficacy rate at preventing deadly and severe malaria cases. This efficacy is low compared to other vaccines. For instance, most Covid-19 vaccines have a 60 to 90 percent effectiveness against serious illness. However, the vaccine in conjunction with other safety measures have the ability to make a big difference. Bed nets, for example, are often used as a protective measure to repel mosquitoes from attacking the individual underneath them. Because malaria has existed for hundreds of years, the disease has evolved to evade our immune system. This means that even people who have been infected before do not build up immunity. This is why even without a 100-percent efficacy, the GSK vaccine is a success that paves the way for development of other vaccines.

So far, 2.3 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in Sub-Saharan African countries such as Ghana and Kenya, with over 800,000 of those receiving doses being children. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there have been delays with supply and production of the malaria vaccine. But, scientists hope that the Global Vaccine Alliance will determine that the vaccine, even with it’s modest efficacy, is a worthwhile investment. This will allow countries who request it to purchase the vaccine. Unfortunately, since Covid-19 has diverted some countries’ focus away from the malaria crisis, it is unclear whether or not countries will be ready to prioritize widespread roll out of the new vaccine.