The development of an effective vaccine for malaria has proved to be far more challenging than developing a vaccine to protect people from COVID-19. Several different COVID-19 vaccines were developed and approved for use within a year of the disease’s emergence.
In contrast, it took over 30 years of intensive research and numerous clinical trials by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and partners before the first malaria vaccine, Mosquirix, was approved for use by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2021.
