The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare has said fears that the malaria vaccine is merely being tested in Africa because of racial or financial considerations are unfounded.
Though there has been some sensitisation in the testing areas about the vaccine, he admitted that the service could have done more to educate Ghanaians about the vaccine.
[contextly_sidebar id=”l74XGXBHAd9UJGTE7aIXBvfLCpXrKrI8″]Sensitisation focused on only the areas where the new vaccines are being piloted.
“Maybe we should have been very rigorous and robust about these communications to even the areas where we are not doing the pilot system. Maybe we should have done it countrywide,” Dr. Nsiah-Asare said.
In Ghana, the vaccine, which was introduced on May 1 is being implemented in the Bono, Ahafo, Bono East, Volta, Oti and Central regions, according to service.
Dr. Nsaih-Asare noted that the first clinical trial was performed on about 50 military personnel from the United States of America and Belgium who had been to malaria-endemic areas.
“So for people who are saying it has not been tested on white people, it is not true,” the GHS boss said on the Citi Breakfast Show.
The next two phases he said saw increases in the number of subjects, with Ghana being involved in the third phase at Kintampo and Agogo.
On April 25, it was expanded to cover some 360,000 children in Malawi, Ghana and Kenya to see how well the vaccine works in real-world situations, as part of routine immunization programs run by African health ministries.
In the earlier trials, the vaccine was found to prevent approximately four out of 10 malaria cases, including three in 10 cases of life-threatening severe malaria, according to the World Health Organisation.
The scepticism from anti-vaccine campaigners, some of which has appeared on social media, did not surprise Dr. Nsaih-Asare.
The vaccine, known as RTS, or Mosquirix, has been in development by GSK, formerly GlaxoSmithKline, for more than 30 years.
The vaccine works by triggering the immune system to defend against the first stages of the disease shortly after the malaria parasite enters the bloodstream.
Aside from the anti-vaccine campaigners, Doctors Without Borders in 2015, said it would not join any pilot projects for the vaccine trials because the earmarked funds and time would be better spent on proven malaria-fighting measures.
In line with this, Dr. Nsaih-Asare assured that the rollout of the vaccine will not replace the National Malaria Control Program.
“This is not going to replace our national malaria control programme, i.e. the diagnosis and prompt treatment of all malaria cases, giving pregnant women anti-malaria drugs because they are also very vulnerable like children, trying to give every child a net to sleep in, doing residual spraying of houses and also trying to make sure that we kill the larvae of the mosquitoes.”
WHO notes that Malaria remains one of the world’s leading killers, claiming the life of one child every two minutes.
Most of these deaths are in Africa, where more than 250 000 children die from the disease every year.
Children under age five are at the greatest risk of its life-threatening complications. Worldwide, malaria kills 435 000 people a year, most of them children.