NEED some good news?
In the depths of a cold and stormy January, we could all do with a dose of good news to counter the mounting pile of war-torn, hate-filled, far-right, anti-everything news.
Here is some good news to help warm up your faith in humanity.
Ta-ta Malaria
You probably know that the deadliest creature on earth is not the ferocious lion, hungry hippo or stealthy shark, but the tiny mosquito which kills 619,000 humans a year with malaria.
Globally, there are 247 million annual cases of malaria and nearly every minute a child under five years of age dies of the disease. Almost half a million African children die from malaria every year.
Where’s the good news in those depressing figures? Well, this week marks a historic and optimistic milestone in the global fight against malaria and doctors are hoping those stark statistics will eventually be confined to history.
Yesterday, Cameroon became the first country in the world to introduce routine malaria vaccinations.
Children have started to receive one as part of childhood immunisations, and as the vaccinations roll out across Africa, the hope is that more and more children will now live beyond the age of five.
Cameroon is a country where malaria cases and deaths have been rising since 2017. Nearly 30% of all hospital consultations are malaria- related.
Think about the time and scant resources that are absorbed treating malaria, the vaccination will not just save lives and provide major relief to families, but will also provide major economic relief to the country’s health system.
“As a malaria researcher, I used to dream of the day we would have a safe and effective vaccine against malaria. Now we have two,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General, back in October, 2023, when the WHO approved the use of a second malaria vaccine.
Just like the proverbial buses, you spend decades waiting for an effective vaccine to come along and then two come in quick succession.
Work on developing a vaccine began back in the 1940s and continued tirelessly since. Malaria vaccines were notoriously difficult to perfect because the disease is caused by a parasite. The new vaccines are against the P. falciparum parasite, which is the deadliest of the malarial parasites and the most common on the African continent.
Decades of research has gone into understanding the life cycle of the parasites, it has evolved sophisticated ways of evading the human immune system, making it really tricky to develop an effective vaccine.
But researchers have finally cracked it and the first vaccine, called RTSS, reduced cases by more than half in the year after vaccination, and by 75% when the vaccine is provided seasonally.
The second vaccine, R21, reduces cases by 75% too.
Because these vaccines do not provide a 100% protection, the continued use of bed nets to stop the insects biting at night and other mosquito reduction methods like spraying are still being emphasised.
Along with Cameroon, 12 other African countries will be receiving 18 million doses of the RTSS vaccine over the next two years, and at least 28 countries in Africa plan to introduce the malaria vaccine into their childhood immunisation programmes.
At least 40-60 million doses of malaria vaccine will be needed by 2026; growing to 80-100 million doses each year by 2030.
This is where the second malaria vaccine (R21) comes in. It is cheap to manufacture and will be produced by the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, to meet demand.
There is an Irish angle to the good news. Irishman Professor Adrian Hill founded the Jenner Institute in Oxford University and has spent decades leading work in the design and development of new vaccines for globally important infectious diseases.
He was instrumental in the creation of one of the Covid vaccines and has helped develop a vaccine to tackle the scourge of malaria. Nice work.
I attended a WHO media briefing last week about the Cameroon vaccine launch and it was clear from all the experts and contributors presenting how genuinely delighted they were to have reached this public health milestone.
After decades of relentless scientific research, the malaria vaccine is a new tool in the fight against this deadly disease and will have a profound and wide reaching impact.
Surely good news.
All aboard
This next story doesn’t have the same global significance, but give yourself a bualadh bos!
Public transport numbers reached record highs in 2023 thanks to more and more of us hopping on board buses, trains, and trams.
I think there should have been a bit more fanfare last week when the news broke that public transport passenger numbers had increased by 24% compared with 2022.
That’s quite a jump, although perhaps the fact that we are only 5% up compared with 2019 numbers means it’s less to be excited about.
But still, it’s numbers going in the right direction and I’ll take good news wherever I can.
Reduced fares and expanded services all played a part in encouraging us to ditch the car and take the bus.
Imagine what the numbers would be if we had more buses and less traffic congestion deterring people from taking the public transport plunge.
In Cork, enforcing the Pana ban and enabling buses to sail down Patrick Street at peak times would be a game-changer and is a measure that is entirely achievable with political will.
Plenty of cities around the world have ways of deterring traffic from certain zones of the city.
If investment in a camera monitoring system is beyond us, a simple big road traffic management electric display that says ‘Turn Left Now’ with a big fat arrow pointing in the right direction at key junctions would go a long way.
The day that happens will definitely be a good news day.
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