German drugmaker BioNTech plans to develop its first malaria vaccine and begin clinical trials by next year.

The ambitious turnaround time is thanks to the MRNA technology used to develop the Pfizer and Moderna coronavirus vaccines in under a year.

The only approved malaria vaccine, Mosquirix, took scientists at GlaxoSmithKline more than 30 years to develop.

Malaria kills more than 400,000 people annually, most of them children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Apart from vaccines and pills, countries - including Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya - use drones to find mosquito breeding grounds and kill the larvae before they hatch.