A welcome breakthrough in modern medicine has been announced earlier this month. The World Health Organization (WHO) has finally given its first approval for the widespread distribution and use of a vaccine to prevent malaria, which is a parasitic disease most commonly spread by mosquito bites. Malaria claimed the lives of over 400,000 people in 2019. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about half of ourworld’s population is at risk for malaria, endemic to sub-Saharan Africa, and also commonly found in southeast Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, Western Pacific and the Americas.

Malaria has been virtually eradicated within wealthy countries, but poorer areas have been waiting far too long for this news to come. With treatment, such as antiparasitic drugs, this disease is much less often fatal.  But, these treatments are not readily available in all parts of the world. Furthermore, after long-term use of the antiparasitic treatments, the parasite becomes resistant to these treatments, allowing it to spread more easily. With this new vaccine approval, it is likely that doctors will immediately implement Mosquirix into children’s vaccine schedules, ensuring they have some level of protection against the disease as soon as possible.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)’s malaria vaccine, known as Mosquirix, or by the scientific name RTS,S/AS01, will now be administered to adults and children as young as 4 months old, in four doses. It will work to stop the parasite from entering and infecting the liver, subsequently preventing all deadly symptoms of the disease, such as fever, chills, gastrointestinal distress, muscle and joint pain, and more.

As with most new scientific technologies, this vaccine still has a ways to go in terms of potential improvement. It was first created in 1987, and has undergone multiple stages of human testing during its development. Although its efficacy rate is currently relatively low, about 30% effective, it still has proven to be safe and a great benefit for public health.

The fight to slow the spread of malaria has historically been obstructed by, first of all, the fact that parasitic vaccines are much more complex and harder to develop than the typical virus vaccine, due to the various life stages and immune system evasion techniques seen by the targeted parasites. Environmental factors also contribute to the growth of malaria cases, such as construction sites and agricultural areas, which hold conditions suitable for mosquito population growth, as well as situations which require people to migrate or suddenly move to new areas with less protection (i.e., bed nets, used to stay safe from mosquitos while sleeping). These situations could be military conflicts or weather conditions.

With this new-to-most treatment for one of the five highest killers in Africa, its economic system is expected to boom, or at least improve while the vaccine becomes a more commonplace treatment. According to the Population Reference Bureau, experts say that the direct effects of malaria account for 1.3% of the slowing of economic growth per year. Without the deadly consequences of malaria, more children will be able to go to school, assist their families financially, and set themselves up for a successful future.

As seen with the successful distribution of the recent COVID-19 vaccine in countries targeted for broad Mosquirix distribution, the rollout program for this malaria vaccine appears promising. In the past years, Mosquirix has been administered to Kenyan communities as part of a pilot program for the vaccine. After its success in safety and widespread administration, WHO has approved it for all areas, a cause for celebration.