KINSHASA, 25 OCT – The Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) will start a vaccination campaign against malaria next Tuesday, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday.
DR Congo’s Ministry of Health ‘for the first time will launch the introduction of a malaria vaccine on October 29,’ said the WHO delegation covering the central African country in a statement shared on the X platform.
The first vaccination campaign will be held in the Congo Central region in the southwest of the country.
Malaria is a potentially fatal disease, transmitted to humans by several types of mosquitoes, with symptoms including fever, headache and jaundice.
In June ‘the first 693,500 doses of R 21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine’ arrived in DR Congo, WHO said in a press release at the time.
“The dose is intended to vaccinate children aged 6 to 23 months against malaria, a disease that affects millions of people in DR Congo and across the African continent,” the statement said.
The same vaccine has already been introduced in other African countries including Kenya, Cameroon, Malawi and Benin.
Africa has a ‘disproportionate share of the global malaria burden’, the WHO said on its website.
In 2022, the continent will account for 94 percent of malaria cases and 95 percent of malaria-related deaths, according to the United Nations health body.
Children under the age of five account for 80 percent of all malaria deaths in the region. – AFP