‘Vaccines for this, that - and the other malady?’

For a moment there, I was elated to learn from the media that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has come up with a malaria vaccine.

This was during ‘World Immunisation Week 2021’ (April 24-30) themed ‘Vaccines Bring us Closer.’ Really...?

What a hoax – unless by ‘bringing closer,’ they are talking of the vaccine injector and the vaccine injection victim!

Vaccines are substances used to stimulate the production of antibodies, thus providing immunity against one or several diseases.

Code-named ‘RTS,S’, WHO’s “new malaria vaccine had (by April 20, 2021) reached over 650,000 children through a ground-breaking programme.

“Two years from the launch of the pilot programme” – we are told by WHO – “more than 1.7 million doses of the world’s first malaria vaccine have been administered in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, benefiting more than 650,000 children with additional malaria protection.” [/www.who.int/initiatives/malaria-vaccine-implementation-programme>]

We’re also told that “‘RTS,S’ is a recombinant protein-based malaria vaccine approved for use by European regulators in July 2015... The ‘RTS,S’ vaccine was conceived and created in the late 1980s by scientists at SmithKline Beecham Biologicals laboratories in Belgium....” [].

Our sister paper Mwananchi (April 26, 2021) headlined its report ‘Chanjo ya malaria kupatikana:’ malaria vaccination to be available.

The paper cited WHO-Africa Director Matshidiso Moeti as saying WHO is excited by the results so far of the RTS,S vaccine in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi... Oh... There’s much more of that heady (?) stuff in the public media domain.

Indeed, manufacturers of the vaccine at the Oxford University in England say the vaccine was about 77 percent effective over 12 months on the children involved.

Also, testing the vaccination is ongoing, involving some 5,000 children between 5 months and three years in four more African countries, Dr Moeti revealed.

This, she said, is in WHO’s otherwise noble efforts to free Africa of the hydra-headed monster malaria! Really...?

Does WHO plan to do so through the ‘RTS,S’ vaccine? Does it plan to achieve that miracle in the foreseeable future by testing the vaccine on three-year old children, but not on adults who are also prone to malaria?

Does WHO... Oh, it is a seemingly hopeless situation, really.

According to WHO’s November 30, 2020 World Malaria Report, malaria killed some 384,000 people in Africa in 2019 out of the more than 400,000 world malarial deaths.

There’s also much hullabaloo about a vaccine against the Covid-19 pandemic ravaging the world since it surfaced in China in late 2019.

By 10:36GMT on May 5 this year, the seemingly relentless/‘never-say-die’ Covid-19 had infected 155,060,050 people worldwide, killing 3,243,494 of them...

Now they are not only dying from Covid-19, but also from anti-Covid-19 vaccines... Whew!

The following recent headlines tell it all:

• ‘23 die in Norway after receiving Covid vaccine.’ [Jan. 16, 2021 [/www.wbtw.com › health › coronavirus › 23-die-...>].

• ‘Man dies after Covid (vaccination) shot...’ [Jan 29, 2021. /www.latimes.com › california › story › man-dies...>].

• ‘Utah woman, 39, dies 4 days after 2nd dose of COVID-19...’ [Mar 10, 2021. /kutv.com › news › local › utah-woman-39-dies-...>].

There are scores of such reports worldwide...

What’s your take on this, my esteemed reader – especially considering that malaria has been with us since about 2700BC, and no effective vaccine has been concocted to-date... Tears, I say!