Malaria Vaccines Save Children's Lives

Malaria is one of the world’s most lethal diseases, killing nearly half a million children under age 5 every year in Africa.
In Lilongwe, Malawi, health worker James Chinomba sees firsthand the benefits of a new malaria vaccine in his clinic and in his home. He and his wife, Eveness, and their four sons live in an area surrounded by dams, rivers and swamps, breeding grounds for mosquitoes and malaria.
"My other children, who are older and missed this vaccine, were getting sick all the time," he says. "Probably every two months, my children got sick. At the hospital, the malaria test was positive. But my last born coincided with the arrival of the vaccine. He hasn't contracted malaria for a year."
Since 2019, health centers in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi have been part of a pilot program for a malaria vaccine supported by UNICEF, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the World Health Organization. To encourage parents to get their children vaccinated, health workers turned to community and religious leaders, who helped spread the word about the vaccine's safety and efficacy.
Over 2 million children in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi have received the malaria vaccine, resulting in a remarkable drop in child mortality.
"We still have deaths, but incomparable to the times before the vaccine," says Chinomba. "The vaccine should keep coming because the generation is growing. Because people have embraced it and made it part of them."
Eight countries have so far rolled out the WHO-approved malaria vaccine as part of childhood immunization programs in 2024: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi and Sierra Leone.
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