Two new malaria vaccines are being rolled out across Africa: how they work and what they promise

Malaria incidents are on the rise. There were 249 million cases of this parasitic disease in 2022, five million more than in 2021. Africa suffers more than any other region from malaria, with 94% of cases and 95% of deaths worldwide. This year two revolutionary malaria vaccines are being rolled out across the continent. Nadine Dreyer asks Jaishree Raman if 2024 will be the year the continent takes a significant leap towards beating the disease.

The RTS,S malaria vaccine

• The long-awaited vaccine was described as a breakthrough for science, child health and malaria control.
• It is being aimed at children under the age of 5, who make up about 80% of all malaria deaths in Africa.
• Among children aged 5 and 17 months who received 4 doses of RTS,S, the vaccine prevented about 30% of them from developing severe malaria.
• Since 2019 more than 2 million children in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi have been vaccinated with the RTS,S malaria vaccine.

R21/Matrix M

• The R21 vaccine is a significant improvement on the RTS,S vaccine, with 75% efficacy over a year.
• The R21/Matrix M vaccine is very cost-effective, projected to retail at $2-$4 a dose, comparable in price to other childhood vaccines used in Africa.
• These very encouraging findings prompted several malaria-endemic African countries, including Ghana and Nigeria, to approve use of the R21/Matrix M vaccine well before the World Health Organization.
• The WHO finally approved and prequalified R21/Matrix M for use in the last quarter of 2023.

No silver bullet

• While the fight against malaria has been significantly bolstered by the availability of these vaccines, they are not the silver bullets that are going to get us to an Africa free of malaria.
• This will be the year that many vulnerable young African children will have access to not one, but two malaria vaccines.

Jaishree Raman receives funding from the Global Fund, the Gates Foundation, the South Africa Research Trust, the South African Medical Research Council, the National Research Foundation, and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. She is affiliated with the Wits Research Institute for Malaria, University of Witwatersrand, and the Institute for Sustainable Malaria Control, the University of Pretoria.