Professor Melita Gordon of the University of Liverpool who led clinical trial in the country, says the Malawi government is planning to roll it out nationally to about 7 million children from next year.

“The findings are critical as typhoid is an increasing public health threat across sub-Saharan Africa due to the emergence and spread of multi-drug resistant strains which are now common in Malawi,” said Prof. Gordon.

These are the first efficacy results from Africa and part of a five-year multi-country project to accelerate introduction of the vaccine.

“Our only real option to controlling these resistant strains of typhoid in a timely way is through the vaccine.

“The TCV efficacy data are first from Africa, and offer great promise for the control of this deadly disease across the continent,” she added.

The study included more than 28, 000 children aged 9 months to 12 years in Zingwangwa and Ndirande townships of Blantyre.

It was done in partnership with the Blantyre Malaria Project and the University of Maryland School of Medicine Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health.

An estimated 1.2 million typhoid cases and 19, 000 deaths occur each year in sub-Saharan Africa, which includes Malawi.

The vast majority of these infections occur in school-age and pre-school children.