By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian government has granted regulatory approval for the R21/Matrix, the malaria vaccine developed by scientists at Oxford University to fight the disease in the country.
This was announced by the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration And Control (NAFDAC), Mrs Mojisola Adeyeye, during a press briefing on Monday.
R21/Matrix-M has shown great success during its trials in Burkina Faso, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) threshold putting it at 75 per cent efficacy, while its effectiveness stood at 77 per cent when administered in three doses.
According to the World Malaria Report, there were 247 million cases of the illness in 2021 compared to 245 million in 2020.
The estimated number of deaths stood at 619, 000 in 2021, with Nigeria accounting for at least 31 per cent of them.
Mrs Adeyeye said that the vaccine is to address the prevention of malaria in children from five months to 36 months of age, adding that Nigeria has the highest prevalence of malaria in the world with over 27 per cent and the highest number of global malaria deaths of 32 per cent.
According to Mrs Adeyeye, a full review using the standards of the World Health Organisation was carried out on the vaccine to ensure its efficacy, safety, and quality.
The development comes days after Ghana became the first country to approve the vaccine.
Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority approved the vaccine’s use in children aged between five months to three years as the West African country strengthens its efforts to control malaria-related child mortality.
An earlier vaccine, GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) Mosquirix, had an effectiveness rating of about 60 per cent but was approved by WHO since there was no alternative in sight.
It was only 30 per cent effective in preventing severe cases. It required at least four doses to be effective, although its effectiveness waned with time.
GSK committed to producing 15 million doses of Mosquirix annually till 2028, but it reportedly fell short of the 100 million required for long-term intervention.
Aduragbemi Omiyale