UNICEF marks World Malaria Day with rollout of new vaccine in Mali

The United Nations children's organization UNICEF is launching today's World Malaria Day with the rollout of the R21/Matrix-M vaccine in Mali, the 20th country to introduce it.

This was the launch of the first malaria vaccine in Malawi back in April 2019.It was a pilot study backed by UNICEF and GAVI, the vaccine alliance.They say symptomatic malaria cases were reduced by 75% during the 12 months following a three dose series of vaccines.

Today, children in Mali will be given an extra two doses, following the first three administered in the first year.

The organisations say it's a strategic approach, aligning the timing of jabs and the highest protection from the vaccine to seasons with the highest risk.

The differences in dosage may still change because protection from the vaccine isn't permanent.

Nicholas White is a Professor of Tropical Disease both at Oxford University's Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health and Mahidol University in Thailand.

He says the vaccines haven't delivered as much as doctors had originally hoped and current global tensions around aid should encourage researchers to also look at other methods of keeping malaria under control.

"The vaccines are okay. They're not brilliant, like many of the vaccines that we give to children, which are very, very effective, you might only need one to protect you for life. They're not useless either, they provide reasonable levels of protection. Unfortunately, not for a very long time so the problem with the vaccines is how do we deliver them to the people that need them, the people that need them, largely, are children in Africa, although we can use them also to accelerate elimination but that's more experimental at the present time. So how important are they? Probably moderately important, but they're certainly not game changers, as vaccines have been for other diseases. "

White also says the vaccine doesn't address the rise of the Plasmodium vivax parasite which transmits malaria, and has been overlooked in the urgency to tackle the more deadly Plasmodium falciparum parasite.

According to a study in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the predominance of Plasmodium vivax in some of the world's most densely populated and impoverished regions should highlight the importance of "reversing the historic neglect of this infection".

Vivax causes relapses months after an initial infection by activating dormant liver stage parasites which create new blood infections.

So far, two vaccines have been approved by the World Health Organization, the first was launched in a pilot in Malawi six years ago.