State expands use of the first malaria vaccine
The government has expanded the use of the world’s first malaria vaccine in the lake-endemic region after a three-year pilot showed its success.
It emerged yesterday that since the RTS,S vaccine was introduced in Kenya in September 2019, the areas where it is available have witnessed a substantial drop in children being hospitalised and reductions in child deaths.
The Ministry of Health will roll out the expansion programme of the vaccine this morning in Vihiga County to an additional 25 sub-counties within the eight lake-endemic counties.
Health Cabinet Secretary, Susan Nakhumicha said the new vaccine is an additional malaria tool to save more children from the deadly disease. “We are thrilled to announce today that more children in Kenya will be able to benefit from the life-saving protection offered by the world’s first malaria vaccine,” she said at a Nairobi hotel where she was represented by acting director of medical services, Andrew Mulwa.
The malaria vaccine expansion follows the Kenya National Immunisation Technical Advisory Group (KENITAG) recommendation for expansion within Kenya’s lake-endemic region.
In 2021, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had also recommended the broader use of the vaccine among children in sub-Saharan Africa and in other regions with moderate to high Plasmodium falciparum malaria transmission.
The expanded provision of the malaria vaccine here in Kenya builds on the country’s longstanding experience with the vaccine and is an important step towards ensuring access to this important new tool – not only here in Kenya, but across the continent.
Kenya is implementing the vaccine alongside Malawi and Ghana.
According to Scott Gordon, Malaria Vaccine Implementation Programme (MVIP) Project Director at PATH, the expanded provision of the malaria vaccine in Kenya builds on the country’s long standing experience with the vaccine, and an important step towards ensuring access to this important new tool – not only in the country, but across the continent.
“The experience of Kenya and the other two countries has also shown that the introduction and provision of the vaccine is an effective means of expanding the reach and protection of proven malaria interventions,” he said.
Recommended interventions
The vaccine has been estimated to save one child’s life for every 200 children vaccinated.
“And when the vaccine is implemented together with other recommended malaria interventions – as it is here in Kenya – it has been shown to reduce the number of children that become sick with malaria, the number of children needing to be hospitalised with malaria, the number of children requiring blood transfusions for malaria, and most importantly, the number of children who die from malaria,” Gordon observed.
Since 2019 Kenya has provided more than one million doses of the four-dose malaria vaccine to children across eight counties, and close to 400,000 children have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
Kenya’s National Vaccines, and Immunisation Programme (NVIP) working collaboratively with the Division of National Malaria Programme (DNMP) has provided the malaria vaccine as part of routine immunization in 26 sub-counties across eight counties in Western Kenya, namely Homabay, Kisumu, Migori, Siaya, Busia, Bungoma, Vihiga, and Kakamega.
This WHO-coordinated pilot programme has been made possible by a collaboration involving in-country and international partners, including the Ministry of Health, PATH, GSK, and UNICEF.
When the malaria vaccine was launched in Homabay County in 2019, the lake-endemic malaria region had a malaria prevalence of 27 percent, but the latest data from the Kenya Malaria Indicator Survey (KMIS) shows that it has dropped to 19 percent.
This can be attributed to the integrated malaria prevention strategies including utilisation of long lasting insecticide treated nets, indoor residual spraying where available, prompt diagnosis and treatment, and the malaria vaccine as an additional and complementary malaria prevention tool.
