Burkina Faso will vaccinate on a large scale against the disease, the number one cause of child death in the country

In terms of public health, Ouagadougou has decided to follow Yaoundé’s example. Two weeks after the world’s first case in Cameroon, Burkina Faso on Monday launched a vaccination campaign against malaria, the leading cause of infant mortality in the Sahelian country, with more than ten million cases per year.

“Today is truly a historic day, as we are introducing a formidable weapon against malaria. It is about the vaccine and we are starting with the RTS, S vaccine, which is effective and safe,” declared the Minister of Health of Burkina Faso, Lucien Marie Robert Cargou in Koudougou where the campaign was launched.

“Third” less severe cases

“This vaccine makes it possible to reduce by at least a third the cases of severe malaria that causes death in children under 5,” added Professor Halidou Tinto, who developed the serum. According to the minister, about 200,000 doses of the RTS, S vaccine, out of the 800,000 doses expected during the year, will be administered to children under 5 years of age in 27 specially exposed health districts.

On January 22, Cameroon launched a systematic and large-scale vaccination campaign with the same serum, the first in the world.

“This vaccine will help drastically reduce the number of malaria cases and the number of deaths associated with it,” said Lucien Marie Robert Cargou, emphasizing that 3/4 of the 5,000 deaths in 2023 were children under 5 years of age. A statistic that is confirmed on a continental basis. “This is unacceptable! We cannot continue to see this situation,” the health minister added.

More than 600,000 deaths per year

The R21/Matrix-M vaccine was also authorized in July in Burkina, and could be deployed “by the end of the year” according to Professor Tinto, who thus hopes to “cover the entire region”.

Transmitted to humans by the bites of certain types of mosquitoes, malaria, also called malaria, kills more than 600,000 people each year, 95% of them in Africa, according to the WHO.