Ghana roll out Malaria Vaccine for Children

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Children in Ghana are starting to get a new vaccine designed to stop malaria. Ghana is the second African country to get the vaccine, which is expected to reduce cases of the mosquito-borne and sometimes fatal disease. But experts caution that other malaria-prevention measures are still necessary.

It took more than thirty years and almost one billion dollars to develop the malaria vaccine launched in Ghana today.

The vaccine, known as RTS-S, reduces cases of the mosquito-spread disease in children by up to 40 percent.

Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi are participating in a pilot vaccination program, which began last week in Malawi. Over the next four years about one million babies are expected to be vaccinated with four doses of RTS-S.

Cape Coast is a city in one of three regions Ghana is targeting due to high levels of malaria.

The vaccine is considered an additional tool in the fight against the disease, alongside bed nets and indoor insecticide spraying. The World Health Organization’s Richard Mihigo said the vaccine is needed because progress has stalled in recent years.

“This is really something we are considering in public health as a dream coming true, because so far when you look at the intervention that has been used to fight the disease, we believe that this new vaccine is going to add a significant boost to the fight against malaria,” he said.

The WHO says malaria infected 219 million people in 2017 and killed 435,000.