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215,900 doses Benin receives first delivery of vaccine against malaria
January 16, 2024, 12:05 p.m
The West African country of Benin has received the first shipment of a vaccine against the tropical disease malaria. Health Minister Benjamin Hounkpatin received 215,900 doses of the RTS,S vaccine at Cotonou airport on Monday evening. According to him, the first vaccinations will take place “within a few months”. Malaria remains the leading cause of death in children under five in Benin, the Minister of Health stressed.
According to him, around 40 percent of outpatient treatments and 25 percent of hospital admissions in Benin can be attributed to malaria. According to the vaccination specialist at the Unicef office in Benin, Faustin Yao, “around 200,000 children” under the age of two will be vaccinated with a total of four doses with the vaccine that has now been delivered. After Cameroon and Sierra Leone, Benin is the third African country to receive the vaccine against malaria as part of a large-scale vaccination campaign.
Previously, four doses of the vaccine had been administered to children aged five months and older in a pilot program in some areas of Ghana, Kenya and Malawi since 2019. According to the international vaccination alliance Gavi, this immunization of more than two million children led to a “spectacular decline” in child mortality from malaria and a significant decline in severe malaria infections.
Malaria is caused by parasites transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito. The disease poses a major health risk in Africa, especially for young children, especially as resistance to common malaria drugs is becoming increasingly common.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 247 million malaria infections were counted worldwide in 2021 and 619,000 patients died. 95 percent of global infections and 96 percent of deaths have been recorded in Africa.
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