November 10, 2005 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced last week $258.3-million in grants for research to develop a vaccine for malaria and other efforts to fight the deadly disease.
Calling the disease a “forgotten epidemic,” Mr. Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, said more needs to be done to stop malaria, which kills about 1 million people a year.
“It’s really a tragedy that the world has done so little to stop this disease that kills 2,000 African children every day,” said Mr. Gates. “If those children were in rich countries, we’d have headlines, we’d take action; we wouldn’t rest until every child was protected.”
The Seattle foundation’s contribution will support three organizations: the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, in Seattle; the Medicines for Malaria Venture, in Geneva; and the Innovative Vector Control Consortium, a cooperative charitable effort led by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, in England.
PATH will receive the largest portion of the giving — $107.6-million — to continue working with GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, a pharmaceutical company in Rixensart, Belgium, to test candidates for a malaria vaccine.
A 2004 trial of one potential vaccine, known as RTS,S, in Mozambique found that it “reduced severe malaria” by 58 percent in children ages 1 to 4, the nonprofit group said.
New trials will see if the vaccine has similar effects on infants, who are among the most likely to be infected with malaria.
The Medicines for Malaria Venture will get $100-million to develop drugs for use in poor nations, and the Innovative Vector Control Consortium will get $50.7-million to improve insecticides and malaria-prevention devices.
While the Gates Foundation has donated almost $250-million to combat malaria since 1999, including a $35-million grant the fund gave in May to support Zambia’s malaria-control efforts, Mr. Gates said more money is needed, especially from wealthy governments. “The world isn’t investing nearly enough in malaria R and D,” Mr. Gates said.
A new report released by the Malaria R&D Alliance, a coalition of organizations working to combat the disease, said malaria-research spending by foundations and governments has increased during the last 10 years, but many more dollars are needed.
Last year such giving totaled $323-million, which is less than 0.3 percent of the amount spent on health research worldwide, the report said.
