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Africa-Europe partnership launches project to optimise malaria vaccine implementation and uptake

  • Writer: EVI
    EVI
  • Apr 24
  • 5 min read

 The OPT-MVAC consortium will support the rollout of malaria vaccines in 14 Central and West African countries

 

  • The WHO-recommended malaria vaccines can bolster malaria prevention strategies and help save tens of thousands of young lives annually.

  • The OPT-MVAC consortium is leveraging the network developed through OPT-SMC, a consortium expanding the use of medicines (seasonal malaria chemoprevention) to protect children in Africa.

  • The consortium will also promote broader vaccination acceptance and raise awareness about the importance of an integrated approach to malaria prevention and control, which optimally combines vaccines, drugs and bed nets.

 

 24 April 2025

In 2023, the World Health Organization updated its recommendation for malaria vaccines to include both the RTS,S/AS01 and R21/Matrix-M vaccines, representing a historic landmark in malaria prevention with the potential to save tens of thousands of young lives every year. However, to fully realize this potential, vaccine implementation must be accelerated and optimised to ensure access for the patients who need them most, particularly in settings where malaria transmission is highly seasonal.


To respond to this urgent need, eight European and African institutions have partnered with 14 Central and West African countries at various stages of malaria vaccine implementation to form the Optimising Malaria Vaccine Uptake (OPT-MVAC) consortium. Together, these partners will conduct vaccine implementation research to help optimise distribution strategies to local contexts and share best practices across their network.

 

The OPT-MVAC consortium benefits from the network, lessons learned and expertise developed through OPT-SMC, a seasonal malaria chemoprevention optimisation project featuring some of the same institutional partners, including London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Université Iba Der Thiam de Thiès, WHO-TDR and Medicines for Malaria Venture. Since malaria vaccines will be implemented alongside other preventive interventions, including chemoprevention medicines, the opportunity to combine drug and vaccine expertise can support efforts to operationalise both interventions.

 

 

One of the partnership’s central activities will be to collaborate with and provide grants to partner country national immunisation, pharmacovigilance and malaria programmes to support the monitoring of vaccine introduction, as well as the development, implementation and evaluation of strategies to address potential barriers.

 

Africa continues to shoulder the vast majority of the global malaria burden and was home to an estimated 94% of global cases and 95% of malaria-related deaths in 2023. Moreover, children under 5 years old are the most vulnerable to severe disease and accounted for 76% of all malaria deaths in the region in 2023.[1] Today, after 10 years of stalled progress, we now have three powerful reasons to believe we can progress towards zero malaria deaths: new vector control tools, expanded use of preventive medicines like SMC and the first generation of vaccines. The tools complement each other and as per WHO, “the highest impact will be achieved using a mix of interventions.”


“Expanding the malaria prevention toolbox with vaccines and having countries take steps towards implementation are critical to their respective malaria control and elimination efforts,” says Dr Michel Vaillant, Head of the Competence Centre for Methodology and Statistics at the Luxembourg Institute of Health, which is serving as the OPT-MVAC project coordinator. “Our project will build on this momentum by leveraging the efforts of partnering countries to accelerate the delivery of vaccines and expand coverage.”

 

Building on partnerships to expand malaria prevention interventions

 

OPT-MVAC is modelled after the EDCTP2 co-funded OPT-SMC consortium, which collaborates with national malaria programmes in many of the same West and Central African countries to optimise the delivery of SMC.

 

In 2024, on average, 54 million children at risk of severe malaria received SMC, compared to just 170,000 children in 2012 [1] — when the intervention was first implemented —across 19 African countries where disease transmission is highly seasonal. This scale-up, which has been facilitated by projects like OPT-SMC, has helped save hundreds of thousands of young lives.   

 

“The OPT-MVAC consortium consists of the same institutional OPT-SMC partners –  with the addition of four more to bolster vaccine-specific expertise – as well as many of the same West and Central African implementation country partners,” says Jean-Louis Abdourahim Ndiaye, Director of Research and Scientific Innovation at the Université Iba Der Thiam de Thiès in Senegal, which is serving as scientific lead for OPT-MVAC.

“We are leveraging our network of partners experienced in malaria prevention to accelerate malaria vaccine implementation, while also promoting broader vaccination acceptance and raising awareness about the importance of malaria prevention and control.”

 

Kick-off meeting and pharmacovigilance workshop

 

From 28 April to 2 May, OPT-MVAC institutional and implementing country partners will convene in Rabat, Morrocco for a week-long kick-off meeting. The meeting will consist of pharmacovigilance workshops and partner countries sharing updates on the current status of their malaria vaccine implementation efforts.

 

The Rabat Collaborating Center, which is leading the project’s workstream on safety and pharmacovigilance for malaria vaccines, will host the meeting. The participation of national immunisation, pharmacovigilance and malaria programmes of partner countries on hand to kick off the project underscores their role in driving its success, as their respective implementation experiences can further support malaria vaccine uptake across the region.

 

“I am hopeful that this initiative will help better understand the acceptability of the malaria vaccine within communities, as well as its impact on malaria morbidity and mortality among children under 5 in the West African sub-region,” says Professor Tchin Darre, Togo’s Minister of Health and Public Hygiene. “The expected outcomes of this project will effectively guide our decision-making to better protect children and contribute to their healthy growth and development, ensuring the human capital of tomorrow.”

 


About OPT-MVAC

 

 

The project’s 14 implementing country partners, represented by their respective national immunisation, pharmacovigilance and malaria programmes, are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo.

 

 


Funded by the European Union, under the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of Global Health EDCTP3 nor its members. Neither of the aforementioned parties can be held responsible for them.


 
 
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