In a major breakthrough for “science, child health and malaria control,” the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday recommended broad use of the world’s first malaria vaccine for children.
It’s based on results from a pilot programme in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, which is being conducted since 2019.
“Today is that day; an historic day,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing, adding that thousands of young lives could be saved by using the vaccine besides existing tools to prevent malaria.
He observed that though the world has made an “incredible progress” in the fight against this deadly mosquito-borne disease over last two decades, there are still over 200 million cases and 400,000 deaths every year even now.
Most of these deaths — two-thirds to be precise — are children under five in Africa, Tedros said.
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