“This is a historic moment. The long-awaited malaria vaccine for children is a breakthrough for science, child health and malaria control,”

The fight to eradicate Malaria in Africa has seen yet another major battle win in the war against malaria. A new vaccine, a world’s first, called RTS,S or Mosquirix has been approved for use on children in Africa.

Malaria is responsible for hundreds of thousands of death in Africa each year for many decades now and most of the victims are young children. Until now, malaria is tackled by people using insecticide-treated bed nets and drug treatments to reduce spread.

Director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement.

“This is a historic moment. The long-awaited malaria vaccine for children is a breakthrough for science, child health and malaria control,”

The Mosquirix vaccine has been in development for nearly 40 years.  It contains part of a protein from the parasite bound to part of a second protein, from the hepatitis B virus, which helps immune cells recognise the substance.

The vaccine is to be administered to children in four doses as young as 5 months old and upwards.

WHO said yesterday that during trials there was a 30% fall in cases of severe or deadly malaria even in areas where bed nets are widely used. They recommended that RTS,S should be further investigated in large-scale pilot studies before widespread use.

Many non profit organsaitions around the world welcome the new vaccine and impressed on the benefit this would made in preventing Malaria and helping to reach children in the most remote locations.