The anti-malaria vaccine, RTS,S, which was tested in several African countries including Gabon, could be commercialized by 2015, according to the Lambarene Medical Research Center (CERMEL) in Gabon.

"The RTS, S is one of the biggest scientific success in the 100 years of research on malaria," said CERMEL's scientific director Peter Gottfried Kremsner to the media on Thursday.

"The results of the study dubbed "Phase III" that was conducted since 2009 in Gabon and six other African countries that included Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania on 15, 460 children for a period of 18 months, have proven the efficacy of RTS,S as a malaria vaccine candidate," the Austrian researcher who adopted Gabonese nationality said.

During the testing, the vaccine helped to reduce malaria cases by 46 percent among vaccinated children aged between 5 to 17 months, and by 27 percent among children aged between 6 to 12 weeks, for a period of 18 months.

"A request for authorization will be presented in 2014 at the European Medicines Agency in London, so that the World Health

Organization (WHO) could eventually recommend the use of the vaccine starting 2015," Kremsner said.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated 200 million US dollars for clinical research on RTS,S. The British laboratory,

GSK, has already invested about 350 million dollars to the project, and has set aside 260 million dollars for the production of the vaccine.

Each year, malaria kills about 660,000 people in Africa, majority of them children. The disease, which is caused by a mosquito bite, is the first cause for hospitalization of children on the African continent.