First malaria vaccine batch arrives in Uganda on Feb 7

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Uganda will on February 7 receive its first batch of R21/Matrix-M, a malaria vaccine recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for children.

Dr Jane Nabakooza, a senior medical officer at the health ministry, told New Vision the first batch will contain a total of 2,278,000 doses.

Another batch of 725,100 does will arrive in April, which will total to 3,003,100 million doses that Uganda has been allocated.

R21/Matrix-M — manufactured by the Serum Institute of India — guards against severe forms of malaria among children.

In the second week of March, the vaccines will be moved to the districts, and then to health facilities the week after ahead of the official rollout on April 7.

Dr Jane Nabakooza from MOH. (Credit: Agnes Kyotalengerire)

Nabakooza said the vaccine will cover a total of 105 districts, targeting children aged from six to 11 months in the first year.

Bigger picture

The development follows the recently released snap analysis on the potential impact of the one-year malaria vaccine roll-out in Africa. 

The report revealed that one year since the launch of routine malaria vaccinations on the continent, over 9.8 million doses of malaria vaccines (in total 12 million since 2023) have been delivered to 17 endemic countries through the Gavi malaria vaccination programme.

Surpassing the initial target of 15 countries, the pace of rollout is an indication of the high demand for this new tool as well as years of preparation by countries and partners. 

In total, an estimated five million children in these 17 countries that collectively represent more than 70% of the world’s malaria burden have been protected.

The same analysis indicated that lessons from the “pilot” malaria vaccination programme in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi which ran from 2019 to 2023 are helping guide country rollouts. 

Co-ordinated by WHO and funded by Gavi and partners, this pilot reached over two million children.

It demonstrated that the malaria vaccine led to a significant reduction in malaria illnesses, a 13 per cent drop in overall child mortality and even higher reductions in hospitalizations. 

To date, 17 countries have rolled out the malaria vaccine, 14 of which introduced the vaccines in 2024.

They are DR Congo, South Sudan, Sudan, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Benin, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Niger, Chad, and Nigeria. 

Kenya, Malawi and Ghana introduced the first malaria vaccine (RTS,S/AS01) in 2021 during the Malaria Vaccine Implementation Programme (MVIP) and have since scaled up routine provision of the vaccine through Gavi support.

Uganda is among the six to eight countries set to roll out the malaria vaccine this year.

Susan Achom, a VHT Kalaki village Kaicho subcounty, checks the body temperature of a sick child. (Credit: Agnes Kyotalengerire)

Game changer

Nabakooza said the introduction of the malaria vaccine is a game changer in the fight against malaria among children. 

Official data reveals that children under the age of five contribute close to 40 per cent of malaria deaths in Uganda.

“If we can reduce malaria deaths among children, we shall significantly eliminate malaria in Uganda,” said Nabakooza.

The just released World Malaria Report of 2024 indicates that in 2023 alone, 12,573,000 people got infected with malaria, accounting for 4.8% of the total cases recorded worldwide. 

Notably, this was a decrease from 12,651,000 (5.1%) malaria patients who were registered in 2022, making Uganda rank third in contributing to malaria cases globally.

The same report also found out that in the same period, the number of people who died of malaria reduced from 16,416 (2.9% of the global deaths) in 2022 to 15,363 (2.7% of the global deaths) in 2023.

Consequently, Uganda takes the 10th position in contributing to malaria deaths globally.

Dr Adoke Yeka, a lecturer in the Department of Disease Control and Environmental Health at Makerere University School of Public Health, said introduction of the vaccine means a lot for malaria control and for Uganda’s pass towards eliminating malaria.

“Adding newer malaria prevention tools on top of the existing ones is very much welcome as it has a big public health impact in reducing the malaria burden and deaths in Uganda,” he said.

Yeka urged the public to embrace the malaria vaccination exercise, saying when a bigger number of people are vaccinated, more people will be protected from getting malaria.

Health inspector, Samuel Arikod, said Paliisa, one of the districts most burdened by malaria, stands to benefit from the arrival of the vaccine.

“If the children are vaccinated, chances are high that we are going to have a bigger population that is protected and we shall be able to invest the money spent on malaria treatment for other productive ventures," he said.

Sensitization

Vaccine hesitancy is still a big challenge globally, including in Uganda.

But the health ministry is working to sensitize the public on the importance of vaccination.

Nabakooza said a lot has been done regarding the evaluation of previous introduction of new vaccines. 

They have since picked several lessons which have guided the development of a demand generation plan, the messages and approaches being used. 

Additionally, a knowledge, attitude and practices (KAPs) study to understand the level of knowledge around new vaccines, including that of malaria, has been conducted.  

They have also come up with several interventions that they were not doing previously, including orienting service providers, religious leaders and cultural leaders. 

They plan to conduct routine tracking as well as listening to what people say, something they did not do previously with new vaccines, especially for COVID-19.

Nabakooba advised parents and care givers to take all children who seem unwell to hospital for assessment before they can be given the vaccine.