GLOBAL MEETING REMINDED ABOUT THE ABSENCE OF MALARIA VACCINE

President Museveni has expressed concern over the continued absence of a malaria vaccine despite years of research into the disease control and prevention.

Speaking at a meeting organized by Harvard University on Wednesday where China and Sri Lanka shared best practices on how they have been able to eradicate the disease, Museveni said he had launched a full war against plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria, but wondered why it has been impossible to have a vaccine yet pathogens such as SARS COV-2 virus that only emerged recently have vaccines.

Museveni said that Ugandan scientists have been looking for a chemical called beta-Propiolactone for the development of a vaccine from elsewhere, only to establish that the chemical is got from locally available materials which shows a need for African countries to collaborate in research if science is to be successful.

He noted that while scientists have been coming up with therapeutics over the years, the challenge is that the pathogen soon starts defeating them.

However, just before Museveni spoke, the World Health Organisation Regional Director for Africa, Dr Moeti Matshidiso had told scientists that researchers are studying the possibility of having a malaria vaccine made using the Messenger RNA technology, which is the latest science that has been used to develop Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines.