Uganda to import 1m doses of RTS,S malaria vaccine in 2024 – Health Ministry

By Ben Musanje

17^th April 2023

The Ministry of Health has continued to clarify on the type of the malaria vaccine that is intended to be brought in the country to beef up efforts in the fight against the disease.

This comes at a time when Uganda prepares to join the rest of the international community to mark the World Malaria Day on April 25.

Speaking to journalists during the media orientation workshop on Malaria in Kampala, Dr Catherine Maitek Ssebuguzi, the In charge of Strategy and Policy in the National Malaria Control Program in the Ministry of Health says that the country decided to use RTS,S.

She says that it will be given to children under two years, especially in Uganda’s most malaria endemic areas and it will be administered in four doses to have full protection from severe illness.

Dr Maitek says they intend to first bring a consignment of one million doses of this vaccine in 2024 and this will work with other interventions already in place, like the use of insecticide treated mosquito nets, indoor and outdoor spraying, and clearing of bushes around homes, according to the health ministry.

In October last 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended the widespread use of the vaccine among children in areas with moderate and high malaria transmissions.

Despite these successes, Uganda is still listed as among the top countries in the world with high malaria cases.

According to the WHO, in 2020, Uganda was among the six countries in Africa that accounted for 55 percent of all malaria cases globally.

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