The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) celebrated the International Mulia Day yesterday, Friday, in the country of Mali, by launching a campaign to distribute the new R2M Matrix-M vaccine, which targets children in the first age between 5 months and 36 months.
Mali has become the 20th country in the world that adopts the new vaccine, which was first presented in Malawi April 2019 as part of an experimental project with the support of UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and the Global Alliance for Carbon.
The results of this experiment showed that giving 3 doses of the vaccine contributed to reducing cases of malaria with 75% symptoms within one year.
According to the new distribution plan in Mali, children will receive two additional doses after receiving the three doses during the first year of life.
This strategy aims to provide the greatest protection during the seasons of the spread of malaria, as the dates of vaccination coincide with periods where the risk of infection is high.
Despite the importance of this step, specialists assert that the protection provided by the new vaccine is not permanent, and it came without the initial expectations of doctors.
“These vaccines provide medium protection, but they are not with other vaccines that may be sufficient for one dose for life, and its protection does not last long,” said Dr. Nicholas White, a professor of tropical diseases at the University of Oxford and the University of Maidol in Thailand.
Africa is the focus of malaria
Mali is considered one of the most common places where malaria is widespread, as the 11th rank in the list of the highest countries is infected with this epidemic in the world, according to the World Health Organization.
In the organization’s report issued in 2024, Mali has 8 million people with malaria, which represents 3.1 epidemic cases at the global level.
The same report indicates that the deaths caused by malaria in the state of Mali amounted to 14 thousand and 328 cases, which represents 2.4% of the total deaths in various countries in the world.
Africa classifies the largest focus of Malay disease, which kills hundreds of thousands of children in various countries of the continent annually.
In the year 2023, Malaria caused the death of 432,000 children in Africa, while the total deaths around the world are estimated at 590 thousand cases, according to the World Health Organization figures.