Efficacy and Safety of Malaria Vaccines: Can Ethiopia Introduce Them?

Abstract

Malaria is causing significant health problems across the world. Sub-Saharan Africa is among the parts of the world which are significantly affected. Ethiopia is one of the countries where malaria remains a major public health concern, despite ongoing efforts to eliminate the disease in high-burden districts. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended RTS,S/AS01 for use in combination with other malaria control interventions in children living in areas with moderate to high malaria transmission. This vaccine has demonstrated reasonable effectiveness against clinical malaria and has demonstrated acceptable safety. The malaria vaccine is 26.7% effective in children aged 6–12 weeks and 45.7% effective in children aged 5–17 months. This effectiveness was measured 18 months after they received the third dose. R21/Matrix-M is the second malaria vaccine that was recently recommended by the WHO. It has shown high efficacy (74% with a low dose and 77% with a high dose of adjuvants) and a favorable safety profile. It is also recommended by the WHO for routine childhood immunization. The introduction of WHO-recommended malaria vaccines into national routine immunization programs is crucial to reduce the incidence of malaria cases and deaths among children in endemic areas.