For more than a year the world has been fixated on developing and deploying a vaccine for the coronavirus, but scientists have been working for decades to come up with a vaccine for another deadly infection — malaria. And now, finally, the long-awaited malaria vaccine is available.
The World Health Organization has approved use of the Mosquirix vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline for children.
This is a miraculous development in the fight against malaria. Though most Americans don’t give it much thought, malaria is responsible for more than 400,000 deaths a year. Most of its victims are children in Africa.
The malaria vaccine comes at an important moment for vaccinations in world history. Not only do we have the groundbreaking coronavirus vaccines, which offer us an opportunity to break free from the coronavirus pandemic, but scientists also have begun tests on a long-awaited HIV vaccine.
Spread by mosquitoes the parasitic infection causes fever and chills, and, in severe cases, seizures, anemia and respiratory issues. Though proper treatment can prevent the illnesses from turning deadly, hundreds of thousands still die from malaria every year.
And developing a vaccine against malaria has proven stubbornly elusive for more than 30 years, leaving public-health experts to rely on insecticide-treated bed netting to prevent infection.
The Mosquirix vaccine represents a huge breakthrough in the fight against malaria, even though it is only about 30% effective and will require four injections.
Experts are hopeful that when vaccination is combined with preventative measures like bed netting, hundreds of thousands of cases can be prevented.
Still, after generations of scientists have worked to find a vaccine to prevent malaria, this development is a major breakthrough. The director of the WHO’s Global Malaria Program called it an historic feat.
This is the kind of lifesaving scientific achievement that stands to not only save lives, but change communities and improve the quality of life for millions of people.
The world owes a debt of gratitude to the researchers and medical professionals who spent their careers working to bring it to fruition.