Ghana, along with Nigeria, became the first countries in the world to approve a revolutionary new vaccine that proved to be very effective in fighting the malaria virus.

Medicines regulators in West Africa evaluated the final safety and efficacy trial data for the vaccine, which had not yet been published, and decided to approve it.

The World Health Organization is also considering approving a vaccine.

Data from preliminary studies in Burkina Faso showed that the R21 vaccine was 80% effective at three initial doses and as a booster dose one year later, according to BBC News.

However, widespread use of the vaccine depends on the results of a larger trial involving nearly 5,000 children. They were expected to be completed at the end of last year, but they have not yet been officially published.

Professor Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford University, where the vaccine was invented, says: “We expect R21 to have a significant impact on malaria mortality rates in children in the coming years and contribute in the long term to the overall ultimate goal of eradication and eradication of malaria.

The Indian Serum Institute is gearing up to produce 100 to 200 million doses annually, with a vaccine manufacturing plant under construction in Accra, Ghana. Each batch of R21 is expected to cost less than $3. Andar Punawalla, chief executive of the Indian Serum Institute, said: “Developing a vaccine that would have a huge impact on the disease has been extremely challenging.” He added that Ghana, as the first country to approve a vaccine, represents “a significant milestone in our efforts to fight malaria worldwide.”

Why did it take so long?

Malaria kills about 620,000 people every year, most of them young children. Developing a vaccine that protects the body against the malaria parasite is a huge, long-term scientific challenge that has yielded modest results to date.

Considering that the scientific community has developed a Covid vaccine in record time, one can understand why it took so long to develop a malaria vaccine. One answer is that malaria is caused by a parasite far more insidious and advanced than the virus that causes Covid.

This particular parasite has evolved to elude the human immune system. That’s why you have to get malaria again and again to protect yourself a little.

It also has a complex biological cycle in both humans and mosquitoes, and even in the human body it undergoes various transformations, attacking the liver and red blood cells.

Source: BBC, CNBC.