ICoast kicks off first vaccination drive against malaria

In Abobo, a poor neighbourhood in Abidjan, dozens of women with babies strapped to their backs line up in front of nurses as Ivory Coast kicked off its first vaccination drive against malaria on Monday.

Sitting on her mother’s knees and held tightly between her arms, eight-month-old Awa cries at the sight of the needle as she prepares to receive her first dose.

“I’m happy. I have seen all the mothers who have come to be vaccinated against malaria”, said Awa’s mother with a smile.

Behind her, women are also consoling their toddlers.

“This disease is devastating and does a lot of damage”, said Achiaou Aremu, a grandmother who came to Abobo to get more information about the vaccine.

She said she will get her grandchildren vaccinated soon.

“It won’t be long now, to prevent them from getting malaria because when a child already has the vaccine, he’s saved,” she said.

– A step forward –

In Ivory Coast, the mosquito-transmitted disease kills four people a day, including three children under the age of five.

Malaria remains the leading cause of medical consultations, according to the Ministry of Health.

The country included the anti-malarial remedy in the vaccination calendar for children, after receiving 656,600 doses at the end of June.

Four doses are to be administered free of charge at six, eight, nine and 15 months of age.

Manufactured by the Indian giant Serum Institute of India (SII), this is one of the two malaria vaccines for children recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO), along with RTS,S from the UK’s pharmaceutical group GSK.

They are estimated to be 75 percent effective in protecting against severe forms of malaria, which causes fever, headaches and chills.

“This decision marks a significant step forward in protecting our children against this disease”, said Pierre Dimba, the Ivorian health minister on Monday.

Among children under the age of five, “malaria mortality fell between 2018 and 2021 from 49 per 100,000 children to 19 per 100,000”, but “remains high among the latter”, health official Aka Charles Koffi said.

“In Ivory Coast, although the number of people dying from malaria has fallen significantly, the incidence has increased in the general population, but also in children under the age of 5”, said Fatim Tall, WHO representative in the country.

In 2022, malaria caused more than 600,000 deaths worldwide — 95 percent of them in Africa and 80 percent of them in children under the age of five, according to the WHO.

– Significant progress –

Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic are among the countries that have already authorised the vaccine.

Other countries, such as Cameroon, have begun large-scale vaccination.

“The malaria vaccine is safe and effective”, the Minister of Health said, seeking to put to rest rumours circulating on social networks, which claim, for example, that the vaccine makes women sterile.

But while it is safe, it is not enough to eradicate the disease.

As part of its preventive policy, the Ivorian government is also distributing mosquito nets, spraying insecticides and asking the population to keep their whereabouts clean — not always an easy task in certain working-class districts of the economic capital.

Agathe Louis-Doh, a resident of Abobo, would like to see her neighbourhood cleaned up by the authorities.

“Right next to my house, there are rubbish bins” piled up, she said, adding that the dirt attracts mosquitoes, and “all my children are sick”. (BSS/AFP)