550,000 Malaria Vaccines Shipped to Sierra Leone

UNICEF recently confirmed that more than 550,000 doses of a World Health Organization (WHO)-recommended malaria vaccines arrived in the Republic of Sierra Leone.

Malaria burden is significant in Sierra Leone as it accounts for over two million hospital visits per year, of which children under five years of age account for one million of these cases.

This vaccine-preventable disease accounts for about 25% of child deaths in this West African country.

These vaccinations are essential as exposure to malaria parasites does not confer lifelong protection, unlike other mosquito-transmitted diseases.

Announced on December 15, 2023, this shipment, worth $ 5.5 million, follows the shipment of over 330,000 doses to Cameroon. These shipments signal the scale-up of vaccination against malaria across the highest-risk areas on the African continent.

As of December 24, the WHO and the European Medicines Agency recommended the Mosquirix™ (RTS,S/AS01) and R21 / Matrix-M™ malaria vaccines. These vaccines have been added to the WHO's list of prequalified vaccines. 

These malaria vaccines are not yet available in the Region of the Americas, which includes the United States.