Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates has pledged 258,3 million US dollar (1,6 milliarder DKR) for research and development to combat malaria, including new cash to test the worlds first vaccine against the mosquito-borne disease, reports the World Bank press review Monday.
Gates, who is providing three grants via the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said it was a “disgrace” that the world had allowed malaria deaths to double in the last 20 years, when so much could be done to prevent the disease.
The largest of the grants, 107,6 million dollar, will go to a vaccine initiative working with GlaxoSmithKline Plc on late-stage clinical trials of its experimental vaccine, Mosquirix. The vaccine has already produced promising results in clinical trials but will not be available until after 2010.
Another 100 million dollar will be ploughed into work to accelerate the development of several promising new drugs, while 50,7 million dollar will pay for research to fast-track development of improved insecticides and other mosquito control methods.
Counting the new money, the Gates Foundation will soon be providing more than a third of the worlds annual research budget for malaria, eclipsing the US government as the leading funder of such work.
The grants, to be spent over five years, will bring worldwide malaria research to about 375 million dollar a year. That is a quarter of the sum that men in wealthy countries spend annually buying Viagra.
Malaria kills an estimated 1,2 million people a year, the large majority of them African children who have yet to reach their sixth birthday, and the toll has risen sharply over the past two decades.
Malaria research accounts for about one-third of 1 percent of the total amount of money spent on medical research and development, even though it accounts for 3 percent of all the productive years of life lost to diseases, according to a report released Sunday.
The analysis, conducted by a group of malaria research and development organizations, found that total spending on research and development for the disease amounted to 323 million dollar last year. That represented about 0,3 percent of total health research and development investments, the report said.
However, malaria is responsible for 3 percent of all the lost years of productive life caused by all diseases worldwide, the report found. Lost years of productive life is a standard measurement of a diseases impact on society.
By contrast, diabetes (sukkersyge) gets about 1,6 percent of the total money spent on medical research, while it accounts for 1,1 percent of all the productive years of life lost to disease.
In other words, the diseases burden to society is about one-third of that of malaria, but it gets nearly six times more money in research and development funding.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
