Kenya is among 12 countries in Africa waiting to officially roll out the first malaria vaccination campaign for children across the country following yesterday morning’s announcement by Cameroon, the country’s minors will start receiving their doses.

However, according to Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri), a major stakeholder in the successive research and trials for the RTS, S vaccine, Kenya had rolled its part of the vaccination in endemic areas for children aged between seven, nine and 12 months.

This happened in April last year, and Kemri recommended the vaccine be given on a routine programme.

“Cameroon and Ghana are doing it to eliminate the disease. For us in Kenya, we recommended it for use in malaria endemic areas around the Lake region,” said a senior malaria researcher at Kemri who cannot be directly quoted for protocol purposes.

However, the source at Kemri could not confirm whether more jabs of both RTS,S/AS01 and R21/Matrix-M vaccines, had been shipped in for mass immunisation.

“Two weeks ago we didn’t have the vaccines, I am yet to confirm and get back with a comprehensive response,” the researcher added.

Backed by the World Health Organization (WHO), the immunisation began in Cameroon yesterday, with the distribution of nearly 30mn jabs earmarked for African children in the coming months.

The WHO has previously noted the research outcome of the vaccine is a milestone in the fight against the tropical disease.

According to global media reports yesterday, children in Cameroon will begin receiving malaria vaccines as part of a rollout of the medicine developed by UK pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithkline (GSK) for 12 countries across sub-Saharan Africa.

A second vaccination developed by scientists at Oxford University and produced by the Serum Institute of India is set to be delivered in seven countries around mid this year, several foreign media outlets indicated.

The distribution of an initial 18mn doses marks a significant turning point in the fight against malaria, a preventable disease caused by parasites transmitted by mosquitoes that killed 608,000 people — 95 per cent of them in Africa — in 2022.