The WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and the Malaria Policy Advisory Committee (MPAC) jointly recommended pilot projects to understand how to best use a vaccine that protects against malaria in young children.
The vaccine, known as RTS-S, is the first vaccine for malaria, but there is one primary question. It requires four doses for a child to be fully protected and therefore requires additional contacts with the health care system. The first three doses are given one month apart followed by an 18-month pause before the fourth dose. Without the fourth dose, children had no overall reduction in severe malaria.
The malaria vaccine, RTS-S, acts against P. falciparum, the most deadly malaria parasite globally, and the most prevalent in Africa. It offers no protection against P. vivax malaria, which predominates in many countries outside of Africa. The vaccine is being assessed as a complementary malaria control tool that could potentially be added to—but not replace—the core package of proven malaria preventive, diagnostic and treatment measures.
Polio vaccine:
On very rare occasions, the live attenuated vaccine-viruses contained in OPV can be associated with cases of vaccine-associated polio paralysis (VAPP) or circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDVPs). Withdrawing OPVs is therefore a crucial part of the polio endgame strategy.
The type 2 component of OPV accounts for 40% of VAPP cases, and upwards of 90% of cVDPV cases. By contrast, wild poliovirus type 2 has not been detected anywhere since 1999 and the Global Commission for the Certification of Poliomyelitis Eradication (GCC) declared this strain globally eradicated at its meeting in September 2015.
Countries have therefore been preparing to remove the type 2 component from OPV, by switching from trivalent OPV (containing all three serotypes) to bivalent OPV (containing only type 1 and 3 serotypes). All oral polio vaccines will be removed after global eradication of wild poliovirus types 1 and 3 has been certified.
SAGE confirmed that the globally synchronized switch from trivalent oral polio vaccine (t-OPV) to bivalent OPV (b-OPV) should occur between 17 April and 1 May 2016.
Measles vaccine:
Currently 13 percent of measles cases are occurring in children before they reach 9 months – the youngest age at which the first dose is typically given, so SAGE is recommending, in specific circumstances, that a dose may be given earlier to infants as young as 6 months when the risk of contracting measles is high.