Peter J Hotez , professor 1 , Mogomotsi Matshaba , clinical associate professor 1 2 1Department of Pediatrics, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston, TX, USA 2Botswana-Baylor Children’s Clinical Centre of Excellence, Gaborone, Botswana Correspondence to: P J Hotez hotez{at}bcm.eduPromoting acceptance is key to achieving expected public health gainsThroughout the covid-19 pandemic, global health scientists and professionals worried not only about this new and emerging viral infection but also about a potential diversion of attention and resources from other pressing tropical and infectious disease threats.1 The greatest of those concerns was malaria, which remains one of the biggest killers of children, especially on the African continent. An analysis by the University of Washington and Institute of Health Metrics found that in 2019, malaria caused 643 000 deaths globally, with children under the age of 5 years living in Africa carrying the highest disease burden.2 However, as the pandemic got under way, those deaths increased,3 possibly because of diversion of attention as well as social disruptions or interruptions of essential services and supply chains. Now, after decades of intensive research, there is some optimism that new malaria vaccines could start to reduce child deaths in Africa and elsewhere. RTS,S/AS0 (Mosquirix) is the first malaria vaccine to be licensed.4 Research on this vaccine began with …

Source: New York Times October 14, 2022 12:38 UTC