[ti:Africa Wants Malaria Vaccine Soon]
[by:www.21voa.com]
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[00:00.04]The African Union's top health official
[00:03.60]wants to get the world's first approved malaria vaccine
[00:08.68]to African countries as soon as possible.
[00:12.72]This comes one day after the World Health Organization (WHO)
[00:18.96]said the vaccine should be given to children
[00:22.36]across Africa to stop the spread of the disease.
[00:27.72]John Nkengasong is the director of Africa Centers
[00:31.88]for Disease Control and Prevention.
[00:34.64]He told an online news conference Thursday,
[00:39.00]"We will be engaging with GAVI the vaccine alliance
[00:43.40]and WHO in the coming days
[00:47.12]to understand first of all the availability of this vaccine."
[00:53.04]He noted that by the end of 2021,
[00:56.80]malaria will likely have killed many more people in Africa
[01:01.48]than COVID-19 will have.
[01:05.12]WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
[01:10.48]called it "a historic moment" Wednesday
[01:13.88]after the health agency's advisory groups
[01:17.20]approved the use of a vaccine to fight malaria.
[01:22.48]Dr. Matshidiso Moeti is the WHO's Africa director.
[01:28.92]She said, "We expect many more African children
[01:33.24]to be protected from malaria and grow into healthy adults."
[01:38.96]The WHO said its decision was based largely on results
[01:44.16]from ongoing research in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi.
[01:50.32]The research followed more than 800,000 children
[01:54.16]who have received the vaccine since 2019.
[01:58.96]The WHO said side effects were rare,
[02:02.56]but sometimes included a high temperature that could result
[02:07.28]in temporary sudden movements called convulsions.
[02:12.12]The vaccine, known as Mosquirix, was developed
[02:16.44]by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline in 1987.
[02:22.32]While it is the first to be authorized,
[02:24.76]the vaccine is only about 30 percent effective.
[02:30.04]It requires up to four treatments
[02:33.00]and its protection decreases after several months.
[02:37.92]But scientists say the vaccine could have a major effect
[02:42.32]against malaria in Africa.
[02:45.84]Most of the world's 200 million cases
[02:49.12]and 400,000 malaria deaths each year are in Africa.
[02:55.00]Julian Rayner, director of the Cambridge Institute
[02:59.28]for Medical Research, said, "It's an imperfect vaccine,
[03:03.72]but it will still stop hundreds of thousands of children from dying."
[03:09.32]Dr. Alejandro Cravioto
[03:11.96]is head of the WHO vaccine group that gave the guidance.
[03:17.40]He said designing a shot against malaria was difficult
[03:22.60]because it is a parasitic disease spread by insects called mosquitoes.
[03:29.92]"We're confronted with extraordinarily complex organisms," he said.
[03:34.68]"We are not yet in reach of a highly efficacious vaccine,
[03:39.68]but what we have now is a vaccine
[03:42.76]that can be deployed and that is safe."
[03:46.64]Azra Ghani is chair of infectious diseases
[03:50.56]at Imperial College London.
[03:53.64]She said the WHO guidance would hopefully
[03:58.16]be a "first step" to making better malaria vaccines.
[04:03.60]She added that efforts to produce a second-generation malaria vaccine
[04:09.72]could receive help from messenger RNA technology.
[04:14.60]The drug company BioNTech recently said
[04:18.16]it would begin researching for a possible malaria vaccine.
[04:22.88]The company and its partner Pfizer
[04:26.48]made one of the most successful COVID-19 vaccines with mRNA.
[04:33.28]I'm Caty Weaver.
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