GSK Welcomes Gavi Decision to Fund Routine Malaria Vaccines for Kids

GSK recently welcomed the decision of the Gavi Board to fund the procurement and introduction of malaria vaccines into routine child immunization programs in eligible countries.

GSK developed its malaria vaccine, RTS,S/AS01 e, over 35 years of research. The vaccine is the first and only malaria vaccine to significantly reduce malaria in children in pivotal long-term clinical trials.

And most recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended the broader use of RTS,S/AS01 e to reduce childhood illness and deaths from malaria in children living in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions with moderate to high transmission.

“The vaccine has the potential to have a significant impact on the burden of malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Thomas Breuer, chief global health office at GSK, said in the announcement.

“Gavi’s funding decision is a critical next step in ensuring access to the malaria vaccine for children who need it, by creating visibility around potential demand for the vaccine, as well as local implementation needs,” Breuer continued.

Africa bears the heaviest malaria burden, and African children are at the highest risk of dying of the disease, a GSK spokesperson explained. Over 260,000 African children under five years old died from malaria in 2019.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased disease burden and the need for new tools to combat malaria.

In 2019, malaria vaccine implementation programs (MVIP) started in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi. The programs have already shown a high impact in real-life childhood vaccination settings and strong community demand.

So far, over 800,000 children have received at least one dose of the RTS,S/AS01 e vaccine.

Data from a study of 6,000 children by the London School Hygiene and Tropical Medicine showed that combining the vaccine and Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) three years after vaccination lowered clinical episodes of malaria by nearly 70 percent compared to SMC alone.

The results suggest that the impact of RTS,S vaccination can be increased to further reduce mortality, especially when combined with other recommended malaria control interventions in a seasonal setting.

Notably, researchers developed a promising new blueprint for an RNA-based vaccine for malaria in March. The blueprint contains similar properties as RNA COVID-19 vaccines. 

Novartis Pharmaceutical and the National Institutes of Health funded the vaccine work.

The patent application for this novel vaccine, of which GSK is an assignee, was published by the US Patent & Trademark Office at the beginning of February. GSK can produce the vaccine and make it available to the public if the patent is approved