The World Health Organization says malaria kills 180,000 more people a year than previously thought. Global development

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The World Health Organization has called for a “huge and urgent” effort to get the new malaria vaccine into the arms of African children, warning that about 180,000 people die from the disease annually than previously thought.

Dr Pedro Alonso, director of the World Health Organization’s Global Malaria Program, said the RTS,S vaccine, recommended for wide deployment in October, represents a historic opportunity to save tens of thousands of lives, mostly children under five in sub-Saharan Africa.

But he warned that the global community risks “a catastrophic failure” if funding is not pledged quickly to boost production and help spread the vaccine.

“What I think is the real barrier [is] International Solidarity.” “Will the world allow the first malaria vaccine that could save the lives of tens of thousands of African children each year to leave it on the shelf? Or will they go up? “

British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKlein, which developed the RTS,S vaccine, has committed to donating up to 10 million doses for use in pilot programs already underway, and to provide up to 15 million doses annually.

However, with more than 240 million cases globally last year, potential demand could be as high as 80 to 100 million doses per year, Alonso warned. “So this is a prime example of where international mechanisms have to play,” he said.

“A vaccine that could save between 40 and 70-80,000 lives each year, of African children, is something that needs to be treated with the utmost ambition and a sense of urgency. Thus, slow and gradual expansion, if you ask me, would not be acceptable. It should be This is a huge and urgent operation to ensure that we reach as many children as possible and as quickly as possible.”

He added: “If the global health community does not respond to this challenge, it will be a fiasco. I cannot imagine how different leaders, leaders of philanthropy or funding institutions, would go to Africa and advocate for efforts to prevent child deaths if they did not support, first of all Thing, spread this vaccine.”

Last week, the global vaccine alliance, Gavi, said its board had approved an initial $155.7m (£117m) to launch RTS, S. It added that the funding would help introduce, purchase and deliver the vaccine to eligible countries in sub-Saharan Africa from 2022 to 2025.

Dr Abdelrahman Diallo, CEO of the RBM Partnership to End Malaria, said the announcement would give the private sector a “critical impetus to scale up” the startup.

“We now call on leaders to increase investment to accelerate the development and delivery of more effective transformative tools to combat the ever-growing malaria parasite,” he said.

New figures released by the World Health Organization on Monday underlined the scale of the problem, with a new “more accurate” method of counting that estimates 627,000 people died of malaria last year, 180,000 more than the total under the old methodology.

The vast majority of all malaria deaths – 96% – were in sub-Saharan Africa.

In its annual report on malaria, the World Health Organization said the “doomsday scenario” some predicted at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic – that malaria deaths would double as a result of disruption to treatment and services – did not materialize.

However, she said, deaths rose by nearly 70,000 last year, a 12% increase, of which nearly 50,000 were attributable to disruptions during the pandemic. A major cause of the disruption was the failure to distribute more than a quarter of insecticide-treated nets – the backbone of WHO’s malaria control efforts – in 2020.

In the face of slowing progress in the fight against malaria, the World Health Organization believes the vaccine could be an important new weapon, although questions have been raised about its limited efficacy. Over a four-year trial, RTS,S was found to prevent 39% of malaria cases and 29% of severe malaria cases.

But Alonso dismissed the concerns. 30% off [in] Severe cases of malaria mean an enormous public health impact, perhaps greater than any other vaccine against any other disease currently in use.”

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