Malawi on Tuesday rolled out the world's first licensed malaria vaccine in a landmark campaign against a disease that each year kills hundreds of thousands of people, especially African children.
After more than three decades in development and almost USD 1 billion (890 million euros) in investment, the new vaccine began to be distributed in Malawi's capital Lilongwe. It will be extended to Kenya and Ghana in coming weeks.
"We have seen tremendous gains from bed nets and other measures to control malaria in the last 15 years but progress has stalled and even reversed in some areas," World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
"We need new solutions to get the malaria response back on track, and this vaccine gives us a promising tool to get there."