Cameroon launched the first systematic vaccination in the world

Published on: 01/22/2024 – 4:24 pm

4 minutes

This is the first world. Cameroon on Monday January 22 launched a systematic and large-scale vaccination campaign against malaria, a “historic step” according to the WHO in the fight against the disease, which is the deadliest among African children.

Noah Ngah, a six-month-old infant, received his first injection of the RTS,S vaccine, one of numerous vaccinations, to the cheers and chants of nurses at a small hospital in the town of Soa, 20 km from the capital Yaoundé. Centers in 42 districts have been declared “priorities” by the government of this vast Central African country of about 28 million inhabitants.

A relief for Noah’s mother, Helen Akono, who then waits for his twin sister, Judith. “Some parents are reluctant but I know vaccines are good for children,” she told AFP.

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Malaria, also called malaria, is transmitted to humans through the bites of certain types of mosquitoes. It kills more than 600,000 people every year, 95% of them in Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). And on the continent, children under the age of 5 account for more than 80% of deaths.

More than 300,000 doses of the RTS,S anti-malaria vaccine from British pharmaceutical group GSK, the first approved and recommended by the WHO, were delivered to Cameroon on 21 November. The initial planning of the campaign took two months, during which, according to the government, malaria injections were systematically given to all children under six months of age, free of charge, just like other traditional vaccines.

Burkina Faso, Liberia, Niger and Sierra Leone will follow

RTS,S has been tested since 2019 in “pilot programs” in a limited number of locations in three African countries, Kenya, Ghana and Malawi.

The launch in Cameroon of the world’s first large-scale and “systematic” vaccination campaign, according to WHO, which is coordinating it, is financed exclusively by the Gavi Vaccine Alliance.

The pilot program resulted in a “stunning 13% reduction in all-cause mortality among children of vaccination age, as well as significant reductions in severe forms of malaria and hospitalizations”, the WHO concluded in November.

See also thisMalaria, a scourge that threatens half the planet’s population

In Geneva, Switzerland, Aurelia Nguyen, director of GAVI programmes, enthused that Cameroon was “the first country in the world to introduce direct vaccination against malaria”.

In Africa, “a child under 5 years old dies of malaria almost every minute”, underlines the WHO, which on Monday welcomed the “introduction” of “essential” and “routine” vaccination programs in the country at risk.

After receiving 1.7 million doses of RTS,S, the next countries to begin mass vaccination in the coming days or weeks are Burkina Faso, Liberia, Niger and Sierra Leone, the WHO specified.

“A Revolutionary Breakthrough”

“Large-scale implementation of malaria vaccination” is “a historic step” that “could be a game-changer in the fight against malaria and save thousands of lives every year”, the WHO estimated in late November.

“A revolutionary breakthrough” and “a glimmer of hope”, its Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus congratulated on the delivery of the RTS,S to Cameroon.

The question of vaccine acceptance by the population remains. Data from pilot projects in Kenya, Ghana and Malawi “demonstrated the safety and efficacy of the RTS,S vaccine” and “provided evidence on the acceptance and uptake of the vaccine” by the population, which allowed the WHO to make another recommendation on October 2. 2023, “R21, produced by Serum Institute of India (SII)”, writes WHO.

Special Adviser to the Kenyan Committee of the Global and Malaria Fund, co-chaired by Bill Gates, Dr. “Malaria is such a killer that the population concerned has largely accepted it,” assures Willis Akhwale. “It is not yet the expected miracle solution (…) but even with an effectiveness of 40%, it saves lives.”

“The vaccine has been widely accepted,” adds Maziko Matemba in Malawi, appointed by the government as a “health ambassador” for communities. “There are always a lot of skeptics during these kinds of announcements, but, so far, we don’t have anything like this regarding RTS,S testing,” he adds.

with AFP