A new malaria vaccine created by researchers at Oxford University has been approved by Nigeria.
The move comes days after Ghana became the first country in the world to approve the (R21) vaccine.
Mojisola Adeyeye, the director-general of Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration, stated that the vaccine would be used to prevent malaria in children between the ages of five months and three years, who are the most vulnerable population.
The approval is rare because it occurs before the vaccine’s final stage trial results, which are anticipated to show an effectiveness of 80%, are released.
Nigeria has the highest number of malaria deaths worldwide.
The disease kills more than 6,000 people around the world every year – many of them children in Sub-Saharan Africa.