Gavi wants to take advantage of "RTS, S", the very first antimalarial serum which the WHO had recommended the massive deployment in October to fight against a disease which kills a child every two minutes.
The Alliance stresses, however, that several crucial steps still need to be completed before doses of the vaccine can be distributed and injected.
It is first necessary to determine how the vaccine can fit most effectively into the arsenal of means already deployed to combat the scourge;
it will also be necessary to guarantee its supply and allow eligible countries to apply.
Since 2019, three countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, have started to introduce the vaccine in selected areas where transmission of malaria is moderate to severe.
Two years after the start of this first full-scale test in the world, 2.3 million doses of vaccine have been administered.
Manufactured by British pharmaceutical giant GSK, "RTS, S" is the first vaccine, and the only one so far, to have shown efficacy in significantly reducing the number of cases of malaria, including severe and life-threatening malaria. , in children.
© 2021 AFP