LONDON, (Reuters) - More than 5,500 children across  Africa have been given an experimental new malaria vaccine and  the British drugmaker behind it, GlaxoSmithKline, promised yesterday that price would be no hurdle if it works.

The vaccine, called Mosquirix and the first malaria shot to  make it to final-stage trials, is creating a buzz ahead of a  conference of 1,500 malaria experts in Nairobi next week.

And while the world will have to wait a little longer for  the trial’s results, Glaxo Chief Executive Andrew Witty said his  company was committed to being reasonable on price.

“We are not going to let price get in the way of access for  malaria vaccines,” he told reporters yesterday. “We will be  extremely responsible about the way we price this vaccine.”

Christian Loucq, president of the non-profit PATH Malaria  Vaccine Initiative, said international and African health  experts hope Mosquirix, also known as RTS,S, would prove a  winner in bringing the elusive goal of eradicating the killer  disease within sight.

“Malaria is such a huge problem in Africa, and a vaccine is  perceived as such a strong intervention, that when we talk about  a potential vaccine candidate the cry is always ‘when will it  come?’“ he said in an interview in London before the Nairobi  conference, which runs from Nov. 1 to Nov. 6.

“Among public health specialists and vaccinologists in  Africa, this is seen as the major upcoming intervention — and  that is creating great excitement.”

Malaria kills almost a million people each year and around  40 percent of the world’s population is at risk of the disease,  mainly in world’s poorest countries. Health experts stress that  there are no “magic bullets” against the disease.