A phase-3 trial in children aged between nine months and 12 years carried out in Malawi, Africa, which is a typhoid fever-endemic setting, has shown that efficacy of the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech’s conjugate typhoid toxoid vaccine — Typbar — lasts for at least four years. The efficacy of the vaccine was seen in children of all age groups studied. Children were vaccinated with a single dose of the vaccine during the period February to September 2018.
In 2019, there were an estimated 9·24 million typhoid cases and 1,10,000 deaths across the world. The majority of the typhoid cases and deaths in 2019 occurred in South-East Asia and Africa.
Healthy children aged nine months to 12 years were randomly assigned to receive either Bharat Biotech’s conjugate typhoid vaccine (intervention group) or meningococcal A conjugate (MenA) vaccine (control arm). Both researchers involved in the trial and the trial participants were not aware who received the typhoid vaccine and who received the MenA meningococcal vaccine. In total, 28,130 children were recruited for the trial, and 14,069 children received the typhoid vaccine while the remaining 14,061 children received the control vaccine (MenA).
