The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has revitalized research into malaria and is staying focused on the controversial goal it set three years ago of eradicating the long-neglected disease from the planet, the Seattle Times reports.
When the Gateses issued their call for malaria eradication at a Seattle conference in 2007, many veterans of the fight against the disease viewed the notion as outlandish. Although the disease had been eradicated in many wealthy nations in the first half of the twentieth century, a global-eradication push launched in 1955 faltered, and the disease roared back across Africa and in parts of Asia and South America. Skeptics were also quick to point out that only one disease — smallpox — has ever been successfully eradicated from the planet. Nevertheless, Gates Foundation-funded reports are due soon that will include a research plan with malaria eradication as the end game, and the foundation is already shifting its priorities to align with that agenda.
To that end, the foundation is ending its support for some efforts to lessen the disease's current toll, including research to improve treatment of severe infections that are responsible for most of the estimated 850,000 annual malaria deaths. The decision has concerned some global health experts, who fear the foundation — the world's richest and arguably most influential philanthropy — will divert too much money and energy away from efforts to treat the disease in the short term. "We have to be careful not to put all our eggs in that basket," said Brian Greenwood, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Still, optimism is high that at least some victories are possible against the disease. Researchers are gaining greater insight into the parasite that causes the disease and its complex life cycle, while several African nations have slashed malaria fatalities through the use of insecticide-treated bed nets, indoor spraying, and improved treatment for those who get sick. Those efforts are costly and must be maintained indefinitely, however. Meanwhile, the disease continues to spread in populous countries such as Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where malaria transmission rates are leaving health systems shattered. The World Health Organization estimates that there are nearly 250 million new cases of malaria worldwide each year, most of them in Africa.
Although total eradication of the disease may be as much as forty years away, it's important to start work on drugs and vaccines that could take a decade or more to bring to the field, David Brandling-Bennett, leader of the Gates Foundation's malaria programs, told the Times. "In a general sense, we are focusing on prevention rather than treatment," he said. "We came to the conclusion, which is widely shared, that the tools we currently have are not sufficient to eradicate malaria."
http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=307900024
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