Mozambique: Manhiça-tested malaria vaccine lines up for Africa roll-out

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Mozambique: Manhiça-tested malaria vaccine lines up for Africa roll-out

7:33 CAT | 11 Jul 2017

Domingo (File photo)

Since 2002, Mozambican researchers have been part of worldwide efforts to find a vaccine for malaria. Now the Ministry of Health (MISAU) says a vaccine developed in Manhiça, Maputo province, shows promising potential and will be tested in Malawi, Ghana and Kenya next year.

Baltazar Candrinho, director of the National Malaria Control Program, said that, depending on the results obtained in the pilot phase of the trial, the World Health Organisation (WHO) could replicate the experiment in other countries before final approval of the vaccine.

The Mozambican product, provisionally known as RTSS/AS02, has in the past been shown to protect adults from infection for several months in the United States and Gambia.

The development of a vaccine for children is critical because children under five account for at least 75 percent of the 2.7 million deaths caused by malaria annually.

The incidence of malaria is high in all of Mozambique’s provinces, with 60 percent of patients screened in health facilities diagnosed with the disease and malaria patients occupying about 40 percent of beds.

Source: Domingo