(AFP)Malawi will on Tuesday spearhead large scale pilot tests for the world’s most advanced experimental malaria vaccine in a bid to prevent the disease that kills hundreds of thousands across Africa each year.
After more than three decades in development and almost $1 billion in investment, the cutting-edge trial will be rolled out in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe this week and then in Kenya and Ghana next week.
It aims to immunise 120,000 children aged two years and under to assess the effectiveness of the pilot vaccine and whether the delivery process is feasible.
Four successive doses must be administered on a strict timetable for it to work.
Trade-named Mosquirix, the drug has been developed by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline in partnership with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative.
It passed previous scientific testing — including five years of clinical trials on 15,000 people in seven countries — and was approved for the pilot programme in 2015.
Malaria episodes reduced by 40 percent in the trials.
