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Malaria is one of the world's big killers, with more 600,000 people losing their lives each year, most of them young children. There has been a long and difficult quest to develop an effective vaccine against the disease, which is transmitted by mosquitoes. Now Ghana, in West Africa, has become the first country to approve for use a promising vaccine developed in Oxford University. Ghanaian regulators gave their approval after assessing the final trial data from Oxford University in the UK, which has not yet been published. The vaccine will initially be used for the most vulnerable group - children aged between five months and three years. Adrian Hill is a Professor of Vaccinology at Oxford University and director of its Jenner Institute, which is where this vaccine and the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine were developed. "This is a vaccine that has been designed to be particularly effective in young African children where most malaria deaths occur. The efficacy is pretty high - about 75 per cent." "Normally the WHO gives the first approval and then discussions are held with individual countries. This was Ghana saying, correctly, they now have the capacity as a tier 3, very competent, regulatory authority to make a decision quickly." (Pic: An African girl holds a "Malaria Kills" sign; Credit: Getty Images)
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