Cameroon launches the world’s first routine malaria vaccine program

In January 2024 C.E., Cameroon became the first country to administer the RTS,S malaria vaccine as part of a routine national immunization program — a milestone more than 35 years in the making. Some 662,000 doses began reaching children across the west African nation, opening what public health officials are calling a new era in the fight against a disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year, the overwhelming majority of them young children on the African continent.

At a glance

• Malaria vaccine rollout: Cameroon is the first country to introduce RTS,S — also known as Mosquirix — as a routine childhood vaccine, following successful pilot trials in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi between 2019 C.E. and 2021 C.E.
• Scale of the program: Another 19 African countries plan to introduce the vaccine, with deliveries already scheduled for Burkina Faso, Liberia, Niger, and Sierra Leone — potentially reaching 6.6 million children.
• Burden of the disease: Africa accounts for 95% of global malaria deaths, most among children under five. Cameroon alone recorded more than 6 million cases in 2022 C.E., and malaria accounted for 12% of deaths in children under five that year.

Decades of work reach a turning point

The road to this moment was long. GlaxoSmithKline and its partners began developing Mosquirix in the late 1980s C.E. — an era when a vaccine for malaria was considered by many researchers to be out of reach. The parasite that causes malaria is far more complex than a virus, making it a uniquely difficult target for immunization science.

The breakthrough came gradually. Large-scale pilot programs across Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi demonstrated that the vaccine was safe and significantly reduced severe malaria cases in young children. That evidence base gave the World Health Organization the confidence to recommend Mosquirix for broader use in October 2021 C.E. — the first time any malaria vaccine had received such an endorsement.

Cameroon’s launch now translates that recommendation into action at scale.

What it means on the ground

At a clinic in Douala, six-month-old Nobah Adel cried as she received her first dose on the morning of the rollout. Her mother, Dani Widal, had waited in line for three hours. “Even if she cries, I’m very happy today,” she said. “I have three children and all are always sick with malaria. I hope that the vaccine will finally help her not to be sick like her brother and her sister.”

Widal described spending the equivalent of roughly $50 every three months on malaria treatment for her family — a burden that falls hardest on low-income households. For many families, the vaccine represents not just a health intervention but a measure of economic relief.

Community organizations in Cameroon worked ahead of the rollout to build trust. Mbianke Livancliff of the nonprofit Value Health Africa described holding open meetings to walk people through the vaccine’s approval process and address concerns. “Families are excited,” he said. “They are happy to have this major development and they are saying this is effective and this is what we have been waiting for.”

A two-vaccine future

Mosquirix is not alone. A second malaria vaccine, R21/Matrix-M, developed by the University of Oxford, was also recommended by the WHO and is being prepared for rollout in additional countries. Having two approved vaccines significantly increases the supply available to the continent and reduces dependence on a single manufacturer.

Dr. Mohammed Abdulaziz of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention put the moment plainly at a joint briefing with the WHO: “It brings more than just hope — it brings a reduction in the mortality and morbidity associated with malaria.”

Challenges that remain

The vaccine requires four doses to be fully effective — a logistical challenge in settings where completing multi-dose schedules can be difficult. Public health experts emphasize that Mosquirix works best alongside other measures, including insecticide-treated bed nets and prompt treatment, and that sustained community communication will be essential to keeping vaccination rates high. The rollout’s long-term success will depend on whether health systems, funding, and trust hold together across dozens of countries over years, not just weeks.

Still, the scale of what is now in motion is striking. For a disease that has shaped human history for millennia — and continues to claim the lives of roughly half a million children every year — the arrival of a deployable, recommended vaccine marks a genuine turning point.

Read more

For more on this story, see: The Guardian

For more from Good News for Humankind, see:

• Alzheimer’s risk cut in half by drug in landmark prevention trial
• Ghana creates a new marine protected area at Cape Three Points
• The Good News for Humankind archive on Cameroon

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