Microsoft Corp chief Bill Gates, through his charity group Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has announced grants of US$ 258.3 million for research into malaria prevention and control.
“Millions of children have died from malaria because they were not protected by an insecticide-treated bed net, or did not receive effective treatment. If we expand malaria control programs, and invest what's needed in R&D, we can stop this tragedy,” Gates said while announcing the grant.
“It's really a tragedy that the world has done so little to stop this disease that kills 2000 African children every day. If those children were in rich countries, we would have headlines, we'd take action. We wouldn't rest until every child was protected,” he added.
While US$ 107.6 million from the above grant would go to GlaxoSmithKline's Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) would get US$ 100 million, and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine-led The Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC) US$ 50.7 million to develop methods of prevention as well as drugs to counter the disease.
GlaxoSmithKline would use the grant to complete the trials for an anti-malaria vaccine and apply for its approval, while MMV would try to accelerate the development of new medicines by getting approvals from regulatory bodies. IVCC would use the funds to develop specialized insecticides and other mosquito control methods.
According to Gates, a report by Malaria R&D Alliance has shown that malaria is given a paltry US$ 323 million for research, indicating about 0.3 per cent of all expenditure on research into various diseases. This despite the fact that annually, about 500 million are afflicted by the disease, especially children in sub-Sahara Africa. At least two children die of malaria in this region every minute, causing a loss of US$ 12 billion annually for the impoverished country's GDP. “The report confirms what has been clear, and that is that the world isn't investing nearly enough in malaria R&D,” Gates said.
Welcoming the grant, MVI director Dr Melinda Moree said, “A vaccine is our best long-term hope to defeat malaria, and even a partially-effective vaccine would be a huge step forward. We're advancing this vaccine through final testing in the hope that it will be available to save lives as soon as possible.” With the help of the grant, the vaccine might become commercially available by 2011, she added.
MMV chief executive Dr Chris Hentschel also expressed satisfaction with the grant. “We're racing the clock to develop effective, low-cost new anti-malarial drugs. Five years ago, the malaria drug research pipeline was virtually empty; now we're developing 20 promising compounds, and six are already in clinical trials,” he said.
IVCC is working towards developing more effective insecticides and improved bed nets to tackle the mosquito menace. “Historically, controlling mosquitoes has been key to controlling malaria, but mosquitoes are developing resistance to insecticides. We need new insecticides that are up to the task today, and that are safe for humans and the environment,” said Dr Janet Hemingway of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
According to the Malaria R&D Alliance report, halving malaria mortality rate by 2010 would require an expenditure of around US$ 3.2 billion annually. This number is 90 per cent more than what is being spent on the prevention and control of the disease as of now.
Every year, the disease claims around 2.7 million lives globally, with 75 per cent of the victims being African children.
