Daniel, the first child in Cameroon to receive a malaria vaccine: “Her mother stood in line for 3 hours” – La Linterna

Two actions that more lives were saved in human history, washing hands and vaccines. The world’s first vaccine was injected into the arm of an 8-year-old boy thanks to a village doctor from England, Edward Jenner. Today it has become the smallpox vaccine, but in reality it was the vaccine that changed the world.

This Wednesday at La Linterna Angel Exposito talks about advances in vaccines, emphasizing that they are currently still not available to everyone. “IN AfricaFor example, what many call the Third World, but which is actually just a few kilometers away, has been fighting malaria for many years.”

“95% of cases occur in Africa”

This disease is transmitted by mosquitoes that can will kill 600 thousand people per year in the world. According to Exposito, “one of the diseases with the highest mortality rate.” Besides, David Lopez Acuñaepidemiologist and director of Health Actions at the World Health Organization (WHO), explained in the program that after a bite, the parasite multiplies in the human body and “destroys red blood cells, causing anemia important”.

The director of La Linterna assured that “half the world’s population is at risk of infectionYet 95% of cases occur in Africa. Head of International Programs at Unicef ​​Spain, Blanca Carazo, explained why the percentage of cases on the continent is so high. In particular, tropical climate “with stagnant waters, with a lot of humidity and a lot of heat,” but climate change is also to blame because “due to floods, which subsequently lead to water pollution.”

On the other hand, there is something positive in this story: as Angel tells it, this week first childhood malaria vaccination campaign in Cameroon

, it is “one of the 11 countries in Africa with the highest incidence.” Lopez Acuña states that these vaccines “have an efficacy of 36% and this vaccine requires 4 doses.” The epidemiologist also claims that the Cameroon government has purchased 300 thousand doses of vaccines that will be administered to children up to 6 months.

The first person to start this journey to eradicate malaria is called Daniel and she is 6 months old, “the first to receive the vaccine, filmed for history.” According to the interlocutor, his mother stood in line for three hours to get a dose because she “lived in a city full of mosquitoes.”

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And Expósito notes that 12% of deaths among children under 5 years of age They are caused by malaria. López Acuña says in the program that “children are more vulnerable, they are more outraged by the breakdown of red blood cells, anemia caused by malaria, malarial fevers and malaria outbreaks.”

After three decades of research, the WHO has approved two malaria vaccines that will soon be distributed, says Angel Exposito, “now 19 more African countries are waiting for their doses to arrive so they can join the program and give the vaccine.” some hope“