Malaria vaccine: ‘Let’s save lives, let’s work together’

People in Africa have been reacting to the historic announcement that children across much of the continent are to be vaccinated against malaria. Malaria kills more than 400,000 a year – two-thirds of them African children.

The vaccine – called RTS,S – was proven effective six years ago after more than a century of research. The World Health Organization says the vaccine should be rolled out across sub-Saharan Africa and in areas with moderate to high malaria transmission.

I’ve been sick with malaria very many times – in my childhood and my youth. It’s really uncomfortable – there’s vomiting, nausea, dizziness. I lost weight.

So if there’s a vaccine against malaria I would tell all African parents – as long as you can access the vaccines for your kids – please do. That’s more what we need right now than hesitancy.

Let’s save lives, let’s work together, let’s come together. Covid has taught us a lot about how to be one.

The approval of the malaria vaccine has been long overdue. We can’t be having such diseases in the 21st Century.

Such diseases should be trivial. We can’t have people dying of malaria in 2021, it doesn’t make sense. I fully welcome the approval of the vaccine by the World Health Organization. I think it is really important.

Malaria, trust me, is a horrible disease, I have had it before. I feel very happy that the vaccine has been approved.

I suffered from malaria as a child and during my internship, and during my clinical years I attended to children in hospital because of severe malaria who needed blood transfusion and unfortunately some of them died.

It’s a disease I have grown up with and, seeing all this in my lifetime, it’s an exciting time.

Malaria is so dangerous and has disastrous results on healthcare in Africa.

Now I have very extreme malaria, and I am in bed. In October when the raining stops, there’s a time of malaria. All my body is so hot. I think malaria doesn’t relate to just children. I’ve been in bed for three days. But it’s something we know regularly.

Source: bbc.com