Giving Compass' Take:

• Global Citizen reports on a new vaccine program that launched in Malawi to prevent and treat malaria. 

• This new vaccine will hopefully lead to significant gains in global health. What other measures can be taken to stop this deadly disease?

• Here's how scientists are looking into gene-editing in an effort to stop malaria. 


Tuesday marked an important day for global health efforts as a first-of-its-kind pilot malaria vaccine program launched in Malawi, just days before World Malaria Day on April 25.

After extensive research and development, as well as clinical trials conducted in multiple African countries, the RTS,S vaccine will be rolled out first in Malawi this week, followed by Ghana and Kenya in coming weeks.

“The thing about malaria is, it has been around a long time,” Dr. David Schellenberg, scientific adviser for the WHO Global Malaria Programme, told Global Citizen. “And it is one of the single most important causes of disease and death in the world.”

There are over 200 million cases of malaria reported around the globe every year, with more than 400,000 deaths — most of which are children under 5 years old in sub-Saharan Africa.

Read the full article on the malaria vaccine program in Malawi by Jackie Marchildon and Erica Sanchez at Global Citizen.