Health. Cameroon launches the world’s first systematic vaccination against malaria

Cameroon launched the world’s first systematic and large-scale vaccination campaign against malaria on Monday, journalists noted, a “historic step” according to theWHO in the fight against this disease, one of the deadliest among African children.

Noah Ngah, a six-month-old infant, received his first injection of the RTS,S vaccine to the encouragement and songs of nurses at a small hospital in the town of Soa, 20 km from the capital Yaoundé, one of the numerous vaccination centers in “42 priority districts” of this vast Central African country of some 28 million inhabitants.

600,000 deaths per year

Malaria, also called malaria, is a disease transmitted to humans through the bites of certain types of mosquitoes. It kills more than 600,000 people each year, 95% of them in Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). And on the continent, children under 5 years old account for more than 80% of deaths.

More than 300,000 doses of the RTS,S malaria vaccine, from the British pharmaceutical group GSK, the first to have been validated and recommended by the WHO, were delivered to Cameroon on November 21. It took two months to organize the start of this campaign during which the antimalaria injection is offered free of charge, according to the government, and systematically to all children under six months of age, at the same time as other compulsory or recommended classic vaccines.