After decades of research and trials, a groundbreaking malaria vaccine is being rolled out across West Africa in a major attempt to eliminate the disease which is the second-biggest cause of death of children on the continent.

On January 22, health workers in Cameroon began gathering babies and children below five years of age for the first doses of the RTS,S vaccine, which has been developed by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and PATH, a non-profit health organisation. The vaccine’s designation – RTS,S – refers to the genes of the parasite it was produced from.