On April 17, 2023, Nigeria approved a promising new malaria vaccine. It’s called R21, and in early trials, up to 80% of kids who were vaccinated did not develop malaria.
Nigeria is a country in need of protection from malaria. Its death toll from the disease makes up nearly a third of the world’s 619,000 malaria deaths a year.
While WHO hasn’t yet authorized the R21 vaccine because they are awaiting further data from the latest completed trial phase 3, they hope to act quickly when more data are in. In a statement, they said “the R21 vaccine, if approved, could help close the sizable gap between supply and demand and further reduce child illness and death from malaria.”
So even though the R21 vaccine is still undergoing larger-scale human trials, Nigeria has joined Ghana in authorizing it because of its promise to be the most effective in preventing malaria and its potential to be manufactured at large scale due to its low cost of just $3 a dose. This provisional approval allows a phase 4 trial to be carried out in Nigeria and also places Nigeria among the first countries who will receive the vaccines at large scale.
