Don’t leave malaria control only researchers

It is good news to learn that the country’s Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has approved a new malaria vaccine known as R21 to help fight the disease.

This comes after the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2021 recommended for roll-out in African children RTS,S malaria vaccine (otherwise known as MosquirixTM).

The RTS,S vaccine was, at the time of its recommendation, said to represent the first malaria vaccine and as well the first vaccine against a human parasite to be approved and rolled out.

That recommendation described as a landmark action by WHO was based on the results of the global health organisation’s own coordinated pilot programme in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, where the vaccine had been deployed since 2019.

The records have it that the development of RTS,S took  over 30 years of refinement and optimization in an international collaboration among the British pharmaceutical company GSK, a network of African research centres, PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health)and MVI (Malaria Vaccine Initiative) put together by PATH itself.

Even though we are yet to trace the complete history of the development of R21, the researchers behind its discovery, their partners like Lancet, financiers, years of trials, its ascertained efficacy level and its manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India – the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, all give it the integrity and credibility it deserves.

It is said, for example, that its efficacy of level of 77 per cent in African children achieves WHO-specified efficacy goal of 75 per cent.

We think the continuous efforts of researchers and others to contain malaria, particularly in Africa, deserves tons of commendation because this is a disease that easily cut short the lives of unfortunate children.

We encourage these kind-hearted humans and organisations to not rest on their laurels because the vectors carrying the disease, mosquitoes, seem to be adapting to the existing solutions and producing their new kinds.

Just yesterday, we published a story of the emergence of a new invasive mosquito species said to be deadlier than the female anopheles mosquito which traditionally transmits malaria.

Anopheles Stephensi, first detected on the African continent in 2019, is known to transmit two malaria parasites; Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax, which pose the greatest risk of severe illness and death from malaria.

The new victor can practically breed in almost all sources of water which are not the traditional breeding sites of the common anopheles species and that it survives in extremely high temperatures during the dry season when malaria transmission usually declines.

It is known to spread fast and adaptive to a myriad of climatic conditions and resistant to multiple insecticide classes in many locations, posing challenges in its control.

This means the end of malaria research is not yet in sight.

But while the medical researchers and other health professionals are doing their bits in containing malaria, the African public, including Ghanaians, must do well to follow preventive measures in their own interest.

Let us, for instance, undermine the survival of mosquitoes by keeping our environment clean and unfavourable for them; sleep in treated bednets; and use mosquito repellents or insecticides.