The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended the widespread use of the first malaria vaccine among children in Africa and other areas of high malaria transmission — a breakthrough in the long fight against the deadly disease.
- The vaccine WHO has endorsed — called RTS, S, or Mosquirix — is more than 30 years in the making and works to prime the immune system against Plasmodium falciparum — the deadliest malaria parasite and the most common one in Africa.
- Malaria is a parasite-caused disease that’s been around for thousands of years and is transmitted primarily via mosquito bites.
- Malaria kills more than 400,000 people around the world each year, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. More than 260,000 children under age 5 die each year from malaria.
- It is the first vaccine to complete large-scale clinical trials and show that it can significantly reduce malaria, including life-threatening malaria, in young children in Africa, according to the WHO. It is also the first vaccine developed against any disease caused by a parasite.
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