18 February 2024 , 17:57
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Malaria could be wiped out within a decade for as little as £3 a dose, a British expert says.
Prof Adrian Hill has helped create the vaccine that could be a game-changer in the fight against the mosquito-borne disease, which claims more than 600,000 lives a year.
Two British jabs have been shown to prevent infection and have led to the hope the illness could soon be eradicated.
Prof Hill, director of Oxford’s Jenner Institute, said the jabs, as well as traditional tools such as mosquito nets and antimalarial drugs, could make the next decade the last in which malaria is a concern.
“Eradication of malaria could be feasible in 10 years,” he said at the AAAS annual conference in Denver, Colorado. “I think it’s probably going to be in the mid-2030s, providing the funding is provided. A lot is happening, it’s really exciting. I’ve been in this field for 35 years and it’s never been like this before.
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“Last weekend I was in the Gambia. I trained there, on call in the evenings. During the worst season of malaria, you’d have two or three kids to a bed. That’s gone way down.”
The first successful vaccine, GSK’s RTS,S jab, also known as Mosquirix, was given approval by the World Health Organisation in July 2022.
In December the WHO gave Oxford University’s R21 vaccine the OK. It is expected to be cheaper to produce as it will be made at the Serum Institute of India, which helped make the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine.