Malaria vaccine offers hope, but don't relent on prevention

This year’s Malaria Day theme; ‘Zero Malaria Starts with Me’ points to the reality that citizens have contributed little to the eradication of the killer disease. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), malaria claims an estimated 435,000 lives each year.

At a particular disadvantage are children. According to WHO estimates, annual child deaths arising from malaria are 250,000. Whichever way one looks at it, these are depressing figures from a disease that is treatable and controllable.

Malaria is still a threat to many households, but in particular, the poor who are ill equipped to afford the treatment or even basics like mosquito nets that have been proven to prevent the spread of malaria when properly utilised.

Yet where the Government has gone out of its way, partnered with NGOs involved in health work and provided mosquito nets to locals, they have been misused.

Some families have turned them into fishing nets, others into fences around their vegetable gardens while others use them to shield chicks from hawks and eagles. Cases abound in which households fail to clear bushes around homesteads, or allow stagnant pools of water that facilitate the breeding of malaria causing mosquitoes. Such misuse of nets and failure to observe basic sanitation principles fly in the face of theme ‘zero malaria starts with me’. But despite these, all is not lost.

The discovery of a malaria vaccine code named RTS, S offers hope to many people that finally, the menace of malaria will be controlled. The piloting of tests on the vaccine is being done in three African countries susceptible to malaria infections.

These include Malawi, Kenya and Ghana where at least 360,000 children aged two years and below will undergo the trials before the efficacy is established and eventually the mass production of the vaccine.

According to WHO, the vaccine has the ability to offer partial protection from malaria. Earlier clinical trials have established that the vaccine prevented approximately 4 in 10 malaria cases. The good news is that the malaria vaccine could save tens of thousands of children’s lives.

There should be no let in the fight against malaria until it is completely eradicated. A country’s ability to grow its economy has a direct relation to the health of its workforce, yet malaria is a constant threat.