THE WORLD’S FIRST MALARIA VACCINE got the green light as European drug regulators labelled it safe and effective to use for babies and adults in Africa.

RTS.S, or as many calls it Mosquirix, was developed by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline in partnership with PATH, a malaria vaccine initiative.

The vaccine will be the first licensed human vaccine against the parasitic disease and could prevent millions of cases of malaria in countries around the globe.

In 2013, malaria infected 200 million people and killed an estimated 584,000, mostly in GlaxoSmithKline – 80% of all malaria deaths are in children under the age of five.

It has taken GSK approximately 30 years to develop the vaccine – hopes are running high that Mosquirix will be the final answer to wiping out malaria.

GSK has promised it will make no profit from Mosquirix, pricing it at the cost of manufacture plus a 5 percent margin which it will reinvest in research on malaria tablets and other vaccines for tropical diseases.