Malaria could be eradicated within a decade, a top vaccinologist behind the revolutionary jab from the University of Oxford has predicted.
The disease, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, claims more than 600,000 lives each year around the world and progress in reducing deaths has stalled recently.
But the approval of two British jabs to prevent infection now means the ‘elimination of malaria could be achievable within a decade’.
Professor Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute in Oxford, said the new tools could be combined with traditional prevention methods, including mosquito nets and anti-malarials.
“I think eradication will probably happen in the mid-2030s, provided the funding is provided,” he told the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Denver.
The disease, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, claims more than 600,000 lives each year around the world and progress in reducing deaths has recently stalled (File Photo)
‘There’s a lot happening, it’s really exciting. I’ve been in this field for 35 years and it’s never been like this before.’
The first successful vaccine, GSK’s RTS,S jab, was given the green light for widespread use by the World Health Organization (WHO) in July 2022, followed by the University of Oxford’s R21 vaccine in December 2023.
The world’s first routine malaria vaccinations took place last month in Cameroon, with the ambition to reach 6.6 million children in 20 African countries by 2025.
Professor Hill described how 114 years of research had led to the first jabs that could prime the human immune system to resist the parasitic disease.
The £3-per-dose Oxford vaccine is expected to be cheaper and easier to mass-produce than GSK’s, with plans for at least 35 million doses this year and the potential to scale up to 200 million a year.
However, the WHO has said that both vaccines can prevent about 75 percent of malaria infections and that there is no evidence that one vaccine is superior.
Britain is ‘incredibly strong in tropical medicine’ and ‘punching above our weight’ in the fight against malaria, Ireland’s vaccinologist has said.
However, he warned that achieving elimination depends on adequate financing.
The approval of two UK jabs to prevent infection now means the ‘elimination of malaria could be achievable within a decade’
Some countries have already made impressive progress. The number of malaria cases in China has fallen from 30 million in 1970 and the country was declared malaria-free in 2017.
Professor Hill added that it was ‘a shame’ that more was not done to eradicate the disease.
“People keep thinking, ‘Babies are dying in Africa,’” he said. “Yes, but they’re not babies, they’re actually one- and two-year-olds, people with names that look you in the eye and ran around smiling the day before. It’s terrible to see.’
Mary Hamel, a malaria expert at the WHO, told the conference she was “less optimistic” that elimination would be achieved in the 2030s with current interventions.
But she added: “I think we will improve the tools we have. This was the first generation of malaria vaccines and efforts are already underway to improve it.
“I absolutely agree that more commitment and funding is needed to achieve the goal of eradication.”