The Republic of Benin as well as neighbours Liberia and Sierra Leone embarked on a sweeping malaria vaccine programme on Thursday under an Africa-centric project that hopes to save tens of thousands of children’s lives annually across the continent.
The three West African countries follow Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya and Malawi in rolling out important malaria immunization for children.
The World Health Organisation-approved vaccine will work in tandem with existing preventive mechanisms such as bed nets to tackle the disease which kills almost half a million kids below the age of five across the continent annually.
Benin has 215,900 doses of the vaccine, Sierra Leone has 550,000 doses and Liberia has 112,000 doses.
At the launch of the program in Benin, 25 children received the vaccine.
“I came to have my children vaccinated against malaria. It’s important to me because when children get this malaria disease, we spend a lot of money,” said Victoire Fagbemi, a 41-year-old mother of four.
According to the Vaccine Alliance, GAVI, about 70% of malaria cases is domiciled in about a dozen countries in Africa.