R21: A Race against Time

Malaria has been a scourge on the African continent for thousands of years. A vaccine remained elusive for decades, until the first was approved in 2021, but supply has been extremely limited. Now, another vaccine, R21, has been shown to be safe an effective. Yet even though about 80 million children next year will fall in the ideal age range for malaria vaccination, far fewer than that will be vaccinated under current plans.

The world must commit to using in 2024 all the million R21 malaria vaccine doses that can be made available. Vaccinating 40 million children in 2024 using 120 million doses of R21 could save over 200,000 lives and prevent tens of millions of malaria infections. 

Over 100 million doses could be produced over the next year, with 20 million doses already available now, but current plans will only use a fraction of this potential volume in 2024.

This would leave tens of millions of children unvaccinated in 2024 despite having shots available. 

The COVID-19 pandemic showed that over a billion vaccine doses can be delivered rapidly in Africa — but sufficient political will and funding are needed. 120 million doses at US$3.90 per dose would be $468 million, with distribution costs adding several hundred million more dollars. Still, this would be remarkably cost effective: the average cost of saving a life through malaria vaccination could be well under $4,000.