Kenya will be the third African country to launch phased introduction of RTSS malaria vaccine, the first of its kind towards protecting children against the most deadly form of malaria.
Health Cabinet secretary Sicily Kariuki will today lead in the launch of the vaccine in Homa Bay.
The vaccine will be given to children under two years as part of routine childhood immunisations. Malawi and Ghana started rolling out the vaccine in April.
RTS, a trademark for mosquirix, is a recombinant protein based malaria vaccine.
A statement from the Ministry of Health indicated that the programme aims at reaching at least 360,000 children per year across the three countries.
“Africa bears the greatest burden of malaria worldwide. Global efforts in the last 15 years have led to a 62 percent reduction in malaria deaths between 2000 and 2015, yet malaria still claims the life of one child every two minutes, the majority of them in Africa,” read the statement.
World Health Organisation (WHO) selected Kenya, Malawi and Ghana for the malaria vaccine implementation programme among 10 others owing to their well functioning malaria and immunisation programmes.
