GENEVA: The United Nations heralded Wednesday the forthcoming scale-up of malaria vaccination across Africa after a first shipment of doses arrived in Cameroon.

Since 2019, more than two million children have been jabbed in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi in a pilot phase, resulting in substantial reductions in severe malaria illness and hospitalisations.

Now the scheme is moving into broader rollout, with 331,200 doses of RTS,S — the first malaria vaccine recommended by the UN’s World Health Organization — landing Tuesday in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde.

The delivery “signals that scale-up of vaccination against malaria across the highest-risk areas on the African continent will begin shortly”, the WHO, the UN children’s agency UNICEF and the Gavi vaccine alliance said in a joint statement.