The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended a new vaccine, R21/Matrix-M, for the prevention of malaria in children.
R21, developed by the University of Oxford and the Serum Institute of India, is now the second malaria vaccine to be recommended by the organisation following its approval of the RTS,S/AS01 vaccine in 2021.
Malaria, a mosquito-borne disease, places a particularly high burden on children in the African Region, where nearly half a million children die from the disease each year.
Despite “unprecedented” demand, WHO outlined that the available supply of RTS,S is limited and expects the addition of R21 to result in sufficient vaccine supply for children in areas where malaria is a public health risk.
The recommendation, which follows advice from the organisation’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and the Malaria Policy Advisory Group (MPAG), was based on pre-clinical and clinical trial data demonstrating good safety and high efficacy in four countries at sites with both seasonal and perennial malaria transmission.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said: “As a malaria researcher, I used to dream of the day we would have a safe and effective vaccine against malaria. Now we have two.
“Demand for the RTS,S vaccine far exceeds supply, so this second vaccine is a vital additional tool to protect more children faster, and to bring us closer to our vision of a malaria-free future.”
R21/Matrix-M, which uses an adjuvant developed by Novavax to boost the immune response, will become available by mid-2024 and doses of the vaccine are expected to cost between $2 and $4.
At least 28 countries in Africa plan to introduce a WHO-recommended malaria vaccine as part of their national immunisation programmes.
Professor Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute, Lakshmi Mittal and family professor of vaccinology at the University of Oxford said: “The R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine has been shown to be safe and highly effective across multiple clinical studies and is now approved as WHO policy for widespread use.
“The vaccine is easily deployable, cost effective and affordable, ready for distribution in areas where it is needed most, with the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives a year.”