Cameroon has received its first shipment of Mosquirix malaria vaccines produced by British drugmaker GSK Plc late on Tuesday, November 21, as the country battles with the mosquito-borne disease that kills over 600,000 each year worldwide.
A batch of 331,200 doses of the vaccine – otherwise known as RTS,S – was unloaded at Yaounde’s Nsimalen International Airport, making Cameroon the first African country to get the vaccine after the pilot programs in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi.
Malaria is still one of Africa’s deadliest diseases, according to the World Health Organization, killing almost half a million children under five years, and had accounted for approximately 95% of global malaria cases in 2021.
The Cameroon’s health minister Manaouda Malachie has revealed that the initial shipment of vaccines will go to 42 out of 203 health districts in the country.
Vaccinations will commence next month or early next year, according to an anonymous health official who spoke to Reuters.
GSK has revealed that over 1.7 million children in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi have already gotten at least one dose of the shot, and that it would be given out in another nine malaria-endemic countries, including Cameroon, as from early 2024.
The WHO has meanwhile, said that a second malarial vaccine developed by Britain’s University of Oxford; the R21/Matrix-M, will become available by mid-2024.
