LONDON: The world`s most advanced malaria vaccine got the nod from European regulators on Friday, despite mixed trial results, for eventual use in children in African countries plagued by the killer disease.

Dubbed Mosquirix, the drug received a `positive scientific opinion` from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) following decades of research and millions of dollars of investment.

But it has yet to pass a final World Health Organisation (WHO) hurdle, and may not become available before 2017.

Mosquirix is the most clinically-advanced vaccine against the mosquito-borne disease that infects some 200 million people and kills about 600,000 every year, more than 75 per cent of them children under five.

In sub-Saharan Africa alone, the plasmodium parasite kills about 1,200 children on average per day, according to the WHO.

The WHO must decide whether to recommend Mosquirix use in vaccination programmes after which it will be up to national regulators to license the drug.

WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the UN`s health body should make the decision by November. Developed by GlaxoSmithKline, Mosquirix is the first malaria vaccine to reach the stage of being assessed by a regulatory agency.-AFP