Malaria Vaccine Implementation Programme

A collaborative program coordinated by the World Health Organization, in partnership with the ministries of health of Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, PATH, GSK and UNICEF, to answer outstanding questions about the public health use of the RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine and to inform WHO's policy recommendation on its use in young children across sub-Saharan Africa. The Malaria Vaccine Implementation Programme, abbreviated MVIP, delivered the vaccine to more than 2 million children through routine childhood immunization services in the three pilot countries between 2019 and 2023, and an independent evaluation of that rollout found the vaccine responsible for a 13 percent drop in mortality among age-eligible children, a substantial reduction in hospitalizations for severe malaria, and improved access to at least one malaria prevention measure, whether the vaccine itself or an insecticide-treated bed net, reaching more than 90 percent of children. Building on that evidence, malaria vaccination has since scaled up well beyond the original pilot, with more than 10 million children now targeted annually for vaccination across 25 African countries with support from WHO, Gavi, UNICEF and other partners.