The pharmaceutical company GSK has been awarded a contract to produce the world’s first malaria vaccine so that millions more children will be protected against the killer disease, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) announced on Tuesday. The landmark award, valued at up to $170 million, will lead to 18 million doses of the RTS,S vaccine being available over the next three years, potentially saving thousands of young lives annually.  Malaria remains one of the biggest killers of children under five.  In 2020, nearly half a million boys and girls died from the disease in Africa alone, a rate of one death every minute.