This is a “historic milestone”, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). A crucial step in the fight against malaria. This Monday, Cameroon launched the first systematic and large-scale vaccination campaign in the world against this disease, among the deadliest among African children.
This Monday morning, from the opening, fathers and mothers were waiting for 17 babies. Among them, those of Noah Ngah, a six-month-old infant, received his first injection of the RTS, S vaccine under the encouragement and songs of nurses from a small hospital in the town of Soa, 20 km from the capital Yaoundé , one of several vaccination centers in 42 districts declared “priority” by the government.
Malaria kills more than 600,000 people each year, 95% of them in Africa
More than 300,000 doses of the RTS, S malaria vaccine from the British pharmaceutical group GSK, the first to have been validated and recommended by the WHO, were delivered to Cameroon on November 21. It took two months to organize the start of this campaign, during which the antimalaria injection is offered free of charge, according to the government, and systematically to all children under six months of age, at the same time as other traditional vaccines.
As a reminder, malaria, also called malaria, is a disease transmitted to humans through the bites of certain types of mosquitoes. It kills more than 600,000 people each year, 95% of them in Africa, according to the WHO. And on the continent, children under 5 account for more than 80% of deaths.
The pilot program, financed just like this world first, in particular by the Gavi Vaccine Alliance, had “resulted in a spectacular 13% reduction in mortality, from all causes, among children old enough to receive the vaccine, as well as a substantial reduction in severe forms of malaria and hospitalizations,” concluded the WHO in November.
In Africa, “a child under 5 dies from malaria almost every minute”
This Monday, Cameroon therefore became “the first country in the world to directly introduce vaccination against malaria”, enthused Aurélia Nguyen, director of Gavi programs, in Geneva (Switzerland). In Africa, “a child under 5 years old dies from malaria almost every minute”, underlined the WHO which also welcomed the “introduction” of the vaccine “in essential vaccination programs” and “of routine” in countries at risk. It is “a revolutionary step forward” and “a glimmer of hope”, greeted its general director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the occasion of the delivery of the RTS, S to Cameroon.
The next countries to embark on large-scale vaccination, in the coming days or weeks, after having already received 1.7 million doses of RTS, S, will be Burkina Faso, Liberia, Niger and Sierra Leone .