Nigeria's malaria vaccine rollout: 1.8M jabs, quarter-million kids fully dosed

Nigeria has administered 1.8 million malaria vaccine doses and fully immunized close to 250,000 children since the shots arrived in late 2024, according to AFP. The catch: jabs are reaching just four of the country's 36 states, a slice of a nation of 240 million people that logs 68.5 million infections a year. Malaria killed nearly 200,000 Nigerians and roughly 600,000 people worldwide in 2024, the year the world's first malaria vaccines reached Africa's most populous country.

In Bayelsa, the southern state where the rollout is furthest along, PATH reports an 18% drop in the share of children under 5 who have malaria at any given time. Elizabeth Ogisi, who directs primary health care for the wider Ogbia local government area, described the pre-vaccine era as "hectic," with malaria cases sliding into convulsions and death. Since the vaccine arrived, she told AFP, "we have not recorded anything like the death of a child." That progress stands out because bed net and preventive drug distributions have lagged in the state for years.

The regimen is a four-part series spread across an infant's first 15 months. In the town of Oruma, a grid of squat houses and shaded verandas cut into surrounding forest, clinic workers delivered the final dose to the daughter of Ezibanyenami Paul, a 24-year-old hairdresser who said her baby has not had malaria once — a relief, she said, because treatment runs 5,000 naira ($3.75). Zuweira Nasiru, 39, said her 2-year-old Abdulrauf, the only one of her seven children to get the shot, has had nothing worse than mild cases. Hadiza Hussayn Jibril of PATH called the vaccine "a breakthrough" while cautioning it "doesn't provide 100% protection"; the World Health Organization notes its effectiveness fades over time, which is why the series targets the window when children are most vulnerable. Children under 5, whose immune systems are still developing, account for more than 75% of malaria deaths in Africa.

Getting doses into remote villages is its own battle. James Kurofou, immunization director for the Sagbama local government area, told AFP there are "very difficult zones that we normally don't get to. No roads, you have to take a boat" — a journey across the Niger Delta's wide, mud-colored rivers. The slow start gave health workers room to cut dropout rates between doses and work out logistics, and in some cases teams handed out jabs during home visits for families who could not afford to travel.

Muhammed Afolabi, co-director at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine's Vaccine Centre, pointed to the deeper problem: "The oil wealth you see in a state like Bayelsa does not automatically translate into functioning primary health care," citing decades of government corruption and underinvestment in Nigerian health infrastructure. Bayelsa's health ministry did not respond to a request for comment. At a ceremony in the state capital Yenagoa, PATH and local authorities thanked workers from Sagbama and Ogbia with singing, dancing — and gifts that summed up the road ahead: rubber boots, a raincoat and an umbrella.