Ghana and Kenya will soon join the World Health Organization project to vaccinate 360 000 two-year-olds against the disease that kills one African child every two minutes.

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Thirty years and one billion dollars later, the vaccine RTS,S is ready for roll out.

Early tests show it’s 40 percent effective if the child receives four vaccines.

Africa’s the logical place for the full-blooded tests because the continent experiences 92 percent  of the 220 million annual cases of malaria worldwide.

The mosquito-borne disease is the biggest killer of children on the planet.

Some African children get up to to six bouts of malaria a year. 

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Collapsed oil prices force Angola to spend less on health care and heavy rains have created an ideal breeding ground for the mosquito carrying the virus.

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Angola has been grappling with its worst yellow fever outbreak in three decades.

The big fear is it could spread to China, which has been free of the virus, if Chinese workers return home sick, and supply of the vaccine is already under pressure.

At least 250 yellow fever deaths and nearly 2,000 cases have been reported in Angola since December, but World Health Organisation officials believe the numbers are higher.

The epidemic’s taken hold in the densely populated capital of Angola.

Infections linked to Angola have already been seen in Kenya, Morocco, the Democratic Republic of Congo and China.

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