How is new malaria vaccine drive working in West Africa?
Al Jazeera
How does the new R21/Matrix-M vaccine work and where is it being administered?
The Ivory Coast has received the first doses of malaria vaccine from the world’s largest vaccine maker, the Serum Institute of India, in collaboration with the University of Oxford, and began rolling out a new vaccination drive across the country earlier this week.
Malaria remains a significant health issue in the Ivory Coast, causing up to four deaths per day in the country with a population of 28 million. According to a 2022 report from the World Health Organization (WHO), malaria causes more than 600,000 deaths worldwide per year with 95 percent of cases occurring in Africa and 80 percent of those cases in children under the age of five.
A total of 656,600 doses of the new R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine have been delivered to the Ivory Coast, where clinicians will initially vaccinate 250,000 children aged from newborn to 23 months across 16 regions, the government said.
Professor Adrian Hill, Lakshmi Mittal professor of vaccinology and director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, told the media on Monday that the drive had been made possible through a joint initiative with the Serum Institute of India because of its “scale” and ability to mass-produce millions of vaccines at low cost.
After vaccines are rolled out in the Ivory Coast, the drive will move to other African countries, starting with Burkina Faso, Professor Hill said.
