Public Health, Africa Watch Now: The World Today: Can the COVID Playbook Help End Malaria?

For decades, the world has sought an end to malaria, the devastating mosquito born disease that claims half a million lives and sickens a quarter billion people every year. While Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 3.3 has called for the eradication of malaria by 2030, significant progress towards this goal has remained out of reach. New developments, however, including advancements in mRNA vaccine technologies developed to stop COVID-19 infections, are giving people hope.
 

Recently, Ghana became the first country to approve the R21, a protein-based vaccine targeting malaria. Meanwhile, in December 2022, BioNTech announced a phase 1, first-in-human clinical trial for its mRNA-based vaccine for malaria, an advancement springboarded by the development of COVID prophylactics. How will these trials and therapeutics be received by the countries and people most affected by malaria and how will they impact people’s lives? Will mRNA technologies lead to the malarial cure the world has long pursued? What other lessons might be pulled from the pandemic playbook to tackle other high burden diseases?

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