Malaria vaccine will not replace ITNs and other control strategies - WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it is not expecting malaria vaccine to replace current strategies. Instead, the organization said the vaccine would be an additional strategy in the fight against malaria infection. 

The director of WHO's Global Malaria Programme, Dr. Newman Robert stated this in an exclusive interview with HealthNewsNG

"The vaccine, even if it successful, will not be a replacement for present strategies, it will rather be an additional strategy," Newman told HealthNewsNG. 

 

He added that WHO is not under any form of pressure from any interest group to quickly approve GSK's RTS,S malaria vaccine that is currently at the Phase III clinical stage at study centers across Africa.

"That’s really the power of WHO. We are a member state organization. I feel that people know that we are going to evaluate all the data so that our recommendation will be in the best interest of the people that will benefit from the vaccine based on what the data show and I personally I’ve not had any pressure from any sides. Interest groups, yes, but everybody is interested, so am I. People should let the data speak and the people that will review the data. This is a process that has gotten respected integrity over the years," Robert told HealthNewsNG.

He added that the WHO is closely observing the trial and will allow the entire process to follow standard protocol.

"We at WHO are following the trial like many people and we have an expert committee that sits once in a year to review the results emerging from this trial. The final data from this trial would be available in 2014 and our committee at the WHO will meet to give a recommendation one way or the other in 2015 so we shouldn’t be expecting any recommendation before 2015.

"What that recommendation will be will be dependent on what the final data from the trial show and what the committee makes of those data. These would be people who have real expertise in vaccination and with expertise on malaria who’re working together to consider it through both perspectives as a biological control tool, as a vaccine and together, this group of experts would recommend to WHO how we should use the vaccine and we will make a recommendation and we would urge the countries to make use of it.

 

"So yea we are watching with great interest. Clearly the whole world, myself included would love to have an additional malaria control tool and we are just expecting this clinical trial to finish before we can make a recommendation."