Published: 03 October 2023
A cost-effective malaria vaccine developed with support from the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre has been recommended for use by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine can be manufactured at scale and has the potential to save lives globally.
In 2021, there were 247 million cases of malaria and 619,000 people died, most of them children under the age of five. More than 95% of malaria is in Africa.
The disease is caused by a parasite and spread by mosquitoes. The parasite shape-shifts inside the human body. This makes it hard to build up immunity and difficult to develop a vaccine against it.
The R21/Matrix-M vaccine was developed by the Jenner Institute at Oxford University and Serum Institute of India, with support from the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre. It is the second malaria vaccine to be developed and uses Novavax’s adjuvant technology. The new vaccine has a simpler structure, requires a smaller dose and is easier to manufacture. This makes widespread rollout a possibility.
The WHO recommendation is based on pre-clinical and clinical trial data. This data showed good safety and high efficacy in four countries, at sites with both seasonal and year round malaria transmission. The preprint data shows the vaccine is 75% effective at preventing the disease in areas where malaria is seasonal. The Phase IIb clinical trial, conducted in Burkina Faso, showed the vaccine was 77% effective.
Professor Sir Adrian Hill, Director of The Jenner Institute, said: “The R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine has been shown to be safe and highly effective across multiple clinical studies and is now approved as WHO policy for widespread use. The vaccine is easily deployable, cost effective and affordable, ready for distribution in areas where it is needed most, with the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives a year.”
There are already agreements in place to manufacture more than 100 million doses a year.
With the approval and recommendations by the WHO, additional regulatory approvals are expected to follow shortly. R21/Matrix-M vaccine doses could be ready to begin wider roll-out as early as next year.