In major decision, WHO recommends broad rollout of world’s first malaria vaccine
The World Health Organization, acting on a recommendation from its scientific advisers, announced Wednesday that it would broadly roll out a much-need malaria vaccine, saying pilot testing had shown that it was safe and could be effectively deployed in remote and rural settings.
The decision, which was announced by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, marks a landmark moment in the fight against malaria, for which no other vaccines exist. The disease killed roughly 400,000 people in 2019 — the most recent year for which statistics are available — mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. The biggest toll is on young children; an estimated 279,000 children under the age of 5 died from malaria in 2019.
