This area is one of the world's deadliest diseases. Throughout Africa every year

it kills nearly a half million children younger than five. But a new vaccine

only the second of its kind holds the promise of saving thousands of lives

and moving closer to eradicating malaria.

Ali Rogan has more.

At the end of May, the Central African Republic became the first country to receive doses of the new R21 Matrix M malaria vaccine.

It's intended for children between five months and three years old who were among the most vulnerable to the disease.

UNICEF, the UN's main organization for children,

says eight countries in Africa are set to receive these R21 shipments.

And experts say two vaccines are expedited. are set to receive these R21 shipments.

And experts say two vaccines are exponentially better than one,

helping not just to immunize more people,

but to reduce the illnesses spread.

Andrew Jones is the deputy director of immunization supplies for UNICEF. Andrew, thank you so much for joining me.

The first vaccine was rolled out, approved more than two and a half years ago.

So what are the differences between this vaccine

and the vaccine that was already available?

They're very similar vaccines, in fact.

The first vaccine, which is called RTSS manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline is largely a copy of this vaccine so they're expected to have similar impact in kids.

The big difference when RTSSS was released, it was being

manufactured in Belgium and it was being manufactured at relatively old

plants. They were quite limited in capacity, which was a challenge, because as you can imagine, the demand for this vaccine has been massive.

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