In a bid to eliminate Malaria in the country, Malawi has officially launched Malaria vaccine for under-5 children in 11 districts.
UNICEF, the World Health Organization, PATH, GAVI and other partners are leading the campaign, which targets all under-5 children in Malawi, Ghana and Kenya.
Speaking after the launch at Matimba Community Ground in Mchinji, Secretary for Health, Dr. Charles Mwansambo believes the vaccine will help to accomplish government’s efforts to eliminate the disease by 2030.
“We want to eliminate Malaria from Malawi that’s why we are here today to launch this vaccination as extra arsenal to our fight against Malaria”
“We are targeting every under-5 child so our call to parents in these 11 districts is that are already in the pilot program to bring forth their children. Our plan is that by the time any child gets out of the under-5 age group they should be fully immunized” said Mwansambo
On its effectiveness, Mwansambo said: “the vaccine represent 33 percentage prevention but when it’s added to the already existing prevention tools like the use of net and spry, malaria can easily be eliminated”.
Mwansambo also said that the decision of rolling out to 11 districts came as a result of the limited global stocks of the vaccine.
He, however, said Malawi will extend the exercise to other districts once global supplies improve.
In his remarks, Malaria Vaccine Implementation Program Director, Scott Gordon, reiterated their commitment in supporting Malawi and other countries who are battling with malaria in different ways to make sure that the disease is put to an end.
“We have been working with the Malawi government for the past three years in providing technical support to the ministry of health and again we’ve been working with researchers in evaluating Malawi’s experience to the vaccine and we will continue working with the government during the period of rolling out the vaccine” said Gordon
World Health Organization country representative Dr. Kimambo Neema Rusibamayila believes the vaccine has the possibility of eliminating malaria.
“I think this is a very important step towards elimination as we said the vaccine itself is not silver-bullet but is a part of combination of all important interventions so it’s an important step as we are moving to expand the vaccine to cover the full population in those 11 districts. Where the vaccine is done we have seen how it has reduced Under-5 deaths and we believe that as we expand now we’re definitely going to save more lives of children under the age of 5” said Kimambo
The first 11 districts to get the vaccines are Karonga, Nkhatabay, Ntchisi, Mchinji, Lilongwe, Machinga, Mangochi, Balaka, Phalombe, Chikwawa and Nsanje.
For the children to get full vaccination, they need to start at five months then repeat it after 5th, 6th, 7th and 22nd months.
According to reports, the country records up to five deaths everyday to Malaria despite reducing mortality by half as data indicates that in 2016 the figures were at 23 per 100,000 compared to 12 per 100,000 of 2021.
