The Case For Rapid Malaria Vaccination

The WHO has approved a malaria vaccine for use in children. This is amazing news. Medical interventions that can cheaply treat the worst diseases, particularly those still affecting millions of people in the developing world, are probably the highest leverage acts for doing good in the world.

One criticism, from economist Alex Tabarrok, though, that I strongly agree with:

Quote:

The WHO, however, is planning on rolling out the vaccine next year.

https://marginalrevolution.com/margi...ccination.html

Quote:

The WHO just approved a malaria vaccine for use in children, the R21/Matrix-M vaccine. Great! There are still some 247 million malaria cases globally every year causing 619,000 deaths including 476 thousand deaths of children under the age of 5. That’s not 1000 deaths a month but more than 1000 deaths of children every day. The WHO, however, is planning on rolling out the vaccine next year. Adrian Hill, one of the key scientists behind the vaccine is dismayed by the lack of urgency: Quote: “Why would you allow children to die instead of distributing the vaccine? There’s no sensible answer to that — of course you wouldn’t,” Hill told the Financial Times. The SII said it “already” had capacity to produce 100mn doses annually. …“There’s plenty of vaccine, let’s get it out there this year. We’ve done our best to answer huge amounts of questions, none of which a mother with a child at risk of malaria would be interested in.” Hill is correct: the case for urgency is strong. More than a thousand children are dying daily and the Serum Institute already has 20 million doses on ice and is capable of producing 100 million doses a year. Why not treat this as an emergency?!

via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/75JtvsE