A bold step towards saving lives: expanding access to malaria vaccines in Africa.
A life-saving mission
PATH, an organization dedicated to global health, is leading the charge in supporting African countries as they roll out malaria vaccines. This initiative builds on the valuable lessons learned from the initial pilot program, which began in 2019.
The pilot program: a game-changer
In 2019, Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi made history by introducing the first malaria vaccine as part of the Malaria Vaccine Implementation Programme. Coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO), this pilot program aimed to assess the vaccine's feasibility, safety, and impact in real-world vaccination settings. The insights gained from this initiative were invaluable, providing a roadmap for future vaccine rollouts.
Expanding horizons: vaccine rollout across Africa
Fast forward to November 2025, and the impact of these early efforts is evident. Twenty-four countries have introduced malaria vaccines, with over 47 million doses administered so far. PATH is actively working with several countries, including Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mozambique, Nigeria, and Uganda, to optimize the uptake of the full malaria vaccine schedule.
Unique challenges, unique solutions
Implementing any new vaccine comes with its own set of challenges, and the malaria vaccine is no exception. The recommended vaccination schedule for malaria, which involves four doses starting from around 5 months of age, adds an extra layer of complexity. However, WHO has provided flexibility in this schedule to optimize delivery, such as aligning the fourth dose with other vaccines given in the second year of life.
Furthermore, WHO emphasizes that no single tool can prevent all malaria cases. Therefore, countries are encouraged to provide a mix of malaria interventions tailored to their local context. This approach includes insecticide-treated nets, indoor residual spraying, larviciding, and seasonal or perennial malaria chemoprevention, in addition to the vaccines.
PATH plays a crucial role in helping countries develop strategies that consider local conditions, policies, and realities. By taking into account each country's unique context and health system structures, PATH ensures that the vaccine rollout is effective and tailored to the needs of the community.
Community engagement: a key to success
Working closely with community members is often essential for developing tailored solutions. In the DRC, which introduced the malaria vaccine in October 2024, a knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions (KAP) survey conducted with the Ministry of Health (MOH) revealed that only 50% of caregivers understood the correct dose schedule. Misinformation, lack of trust, and access barriers initially hindered vaccine uptake.
To address these challenges, PATH collaborated with the MOH and engaged over 100 non-traditional partners (NTPs) in Kongo Central, the first province to introduce the vaccine. PATH led co-creation workshops, bringing together representatives from schools, faith groups, local media, women's and youth associations, and traditional leadership. These workshops generated a range of communication and mobilization strategies, from parent engagement in schools to radio broadcasts and community dialogues, all aimed at improving vaccine uptake.
Data-driven decision-making
Improving data capture and utilization is a critical component of PATH's technical assistance approach. Accurate data is essential for informing supply decisions, monitoring vaccine uptake, and identifying areas with low coverage or high dropout rates.
In Mozambique, PATH conducted a data quality assessment in eight districts of Zambezia Province in May 2025. The assessment revealed inconsistencies in data quality across various child immunization recording tools, including logbooks, tally sheets, monthly summaries, and the DHIS2 software platform.
In response, PATH is training healthcare providers in Zambezia on data quality improvement and designing health facility action plans to address these issues. PATH has already conducted data quality trainings for over 50 participants from six districts and continues to provide monthly supervision and mentoring, including on-the-job training for healthcare providers. Additionally, PATH staffers have used site visits as an opportunity to implement malaria vaccine communication and demand generation strategies within communities.
Learning and adapting
Introducing a four-dose malaria vaccine into an already busy immunization schedule presents challenges, but identifying and addressing these roadblocks allows PATH and its partners to adapt and apply valuable lessons. As more countries scale up malaria vaccine implementation, these learnings are shaping smarter, more responsive strategies.
PATH collaborates with WHO, UNICEF, and other partners to develop tools and resources for malaria vaccine rollout. WHO's Essential Training Packages for Malaria Vaccine Introduction covers key topics for health workers and provides customizable PowerPoint documents to meet specific country needs. Additionally, TechNet-21 offers a curated summary of technical resources on global recommendations, evidence, and programmatic considerations for introducing malaria vaccines into national immunization programs.
By leveraging early implementation insights, tailoring approaches to local contexts, and strengthening data systems, PATH and its partners are ensuring that malaria vaccines reach the children who need them most. This initiative is not only saving lives but also building more resilient health systems across Africa.
