The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will donate $258 million to research on malaria, which kills 2,000 African children each day, Mr. Gates announced today.About $108 million will be used in the search for a vaccine, $100 million to hunt for new drugs, and $50 million to develop insecticides and other forms of mosquito control. Counting the new money, the Gates Foundation will soon be providing more than a third of the world's annual research budget for malaria, eclipsing the U.S. government as the leading funder of such work.
"It's really a tragedy that the world has done so little to stop this disease that kills 2,000 African children every day," Gates said in a conference call with reporters. "If those children were in rich countries, we'd have headlines, we'd take action, and we wouldn't rest until every child was protected."
One grant, for $107.6 million, will fund accelerated work on what could be the world's first-ever malaria vaccine, under development in Rixensart, Belgium, by the biologicals division of GlaxoSmithKline PLC, the huge London drug company.Malaria research has been squeezed. Although work on a malaria vaccine had gone on for years at SmithKline Beecham (which became GlaxoSmithKline following a merger in 2000), corporate managers considered scuttling the program as recently as 1999 to cut costs. The program survived largely because its leading researcher pledged to find outside grants to supplement his budget--a move then unheard of in the pharmaceutical industry.
"This is a key step toward development of the most promising malaria vaccine candidate," said Jean Stephenne, President of GSK Biologicals, one of the world's largest vaccine companies. "Approximately five years of work will e required before this vaccine is ready for licensure and implementation, but the international community must already begin preparing the environment for this vaccine so that it can reach those who are in greatest need as quickly as possible."
Press coverage:
Owen comments: This is fantastic news for the world's poor. Malaria is a neglected disease from which 2,000 children die every day. The prospect of new and better treatments, and an acceleration of R&D into a new vaccine, increase the prospect that we can defeat this disease.The international community must rise to the challenge laid down by Jean Stephenne of GSK to prepare the environment for this vaccine so that it can reach those who are in greatest need as quickly as possible.
