Sierra Leonean professor has shocks the world as WHO announces vaccine for malaria in Africa.

Sierra Leonean Prof. Osman Sankoh’s work in Malaria vaccine development has contributed to historic malaria vaccine to be rolled out to protect African children

Prof Osman Sankoh COR, popularly known in Sierra Leone as Mallam O., was the Executive Director of the INDEPTH Network of health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS) sites in 20 countries in Africa, Asia and Oceania.

During his decade-long headship of the institution, the INDEPTH Network raised more than $60,000,000. Two of these successes were a $17,000,000 grant to establish the Malaria Clinical Trials Alliance (MCTA) and another $28,600,000 grant both from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to establish the INDEPTH Effectiveness and Safety Studies of Antimalarials in Africa (INESS).

The eminent Ghanaian scholar and researcher Professor Fred Binka, Mallam O.’s predecessor, became his Project Manager for the two successful initiatives.

The efficacy of the RTS,S vaccines was trialed at INDEPTH sites in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Gabon, Kenya and Malawi. Mallam O. regularly inspected the research activities in all these countries and with Professor Fred Binka coordinated the reports of the exciting work.

Children across much of Africa are today to be vaccinated against malaria thanks to the work of Prof Osman Sankoh, Prof Fred Binka and many colleagues from Africa and the global North.

“This is indeed a breakthrough for the entire world especially Africa where malaria is a leading killer of our children,” said Mallam O. who returned to his home country in 2018.

He is currently the Statistician General of Sierra Leone and CEO of Stats SL, the national statistics office. For 14 months Mallam O. acted as the Vice Chancellor and Principal of Njala University, the second largest public university in Sierra Leone.

His dream is to get more Sierra Leoneans trained in research for health. With a $30m grant from the World Bank to his institution Stats SL from which funds are set aside to establish research sites in Sierra Leone, Mallam O. is looking positively and bongolistically towards realizing his dream.🙏🏾