A malaria vaccine — R21/MatrixM — developed by the University of Oxford, manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India and tested in a phase-3 trial at five sites in four countries — Mali, Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Tanzania — in Africa was recommended (but yet to be prequalified) by the WHO on October 2.
Three countries — Nigeria, Ghana, and Burkina Faso — have already approved the use of the vaccine to immunise children aged less than 36 months. According to the WHO, in 2021, there were 247 million malaria cases worldwide and 6,19,000 deaths. About 25 million children are born each year in countries with moderate to high malaria transmission.
The phase-3 trial was conducted in 4,800 children who were randomly assigned to receive either the malaria vaccine or a control (approved rabies vaccine) and neither the participants nor the people conducting the trial knew who got the vaccine and who did not. The five sites in the four countries where the trial was conducted have different malaria transmission intensities and seasonality. The participants received three vaccine doses four weeks apart, and a booster shot at the end of 12 months after the last dose. The primary vaccination was carried out prior to the malaria season in countries where malaria is seasonal or at any time of year in countries where malaria occurs throughout the year.
