Bill Gates to Fund £28m for Malaria research

Bill Gates is to fund £28m for research in United Kingdom as part of £145m package for research programs worldwide for the eradication of Malaria worldwide. Bill Gates along with his Melinda Gates Foundation is going to sponsor three international projects for malaria eradication over the next five years. Mr. Gates expressed that more research funding is contributed to research of AIDS and cancer, while malaria, which kills millions of children worldwide, has become a forgotten epidemic. He is confident that if we could expand malaria control programs, and invest what's needed in research and development, we can stop this tragedy.

Liverpool School Project:

Liverpool's Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC) Project is granted to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine that will be funded to work on projects that will look at ways to control the mosquitoes that spread malaria by developing safer, more effective, and longer-lasting insecticides for mosquito control. It will also develop improved bed nets and other insecticide-treated materials, and help health authorities determine how to deploy insecticides and bed nets for maximum impact.

Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) Project:

The MVI project will receive a grant of £60.4m for conducting clinical trial of newly developed Malarial vaccine by GlaxoSmithKline in Mozambique, Africa. The newly developed vaccine is found to protect young children’s from Malaria infection. The vaccine gives protection in 58% of children’s. The grant will help in doing further clinical trials in 10,000 children and check that the vaccine is safe when given with other childhood vaccines, it can be introduced into Africa's immunisation programme by around 2011.

Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) Project:

Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) will be receiving a grant £56.1m for developing new malaria drugs. The project would aim at producing affordable and more effective drugs that can be used in economically poor countries. The project aims at developing new compounds, which are effective against malarial parasites, and organizing clinical trials of the new compounds. The researchers feel that due to increased resistance shown to drugs such as Chloroquine by the parasites there is a increased need for identifying new drug compounds. The organizers are confident that they could produce new effective drugs that cost $1 or less per person treated.

Experts View:

Experts from Malaria R&D Alliance, an international group of malaria organizations, says that more funding is still needed to rapidly expand access to existing malaria control strategies such as bed nets, mosquito control, and combination drug treatment. The International group has urged that more than $3.2 billion is needed every year for research in Malaria eradication.

Spokeswoman of Roll Back Malaria Partnership Secretariat said, “The new funding from the Gates' would make a big difference and we absolutely have to have more funds for research. As quickly as we can develop new drugs we also have drug resistance." She said funding should also be given to operational research to make sure that communities affected by malaria know how best to protect themselves against the disease.

Source: BBC News.