
A Renewed Battle Against a Tiny Killer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer; A1
Paulson, Tom
[05/29/2001]
With between 1 million and 3 million people dying from malaria every year, and most of those deaths among children in developing countries, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is working to find a vaccine for the disease. The Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, which received a $5 million grant from the foundation to find new targets for a malaria vaccine, is working with researchers from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research to find a malaria vaccine. The foundation has also donated $50 million to start a Malaria Vaccine Initiative, $40 million to fund research at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and $25 million to Medicines for Malaria Venture. An experimental vaccine, developed by Walter Reed and GlaxoSmithKline, is now in clinical trials on children in Gambia; the Malaria Vaccine Initiative and Britain's Medical Research Council implemented the trials. It will take about $10 billion to eliminate malaria from the world by 2010, according to the World Health Organization, which notes that the economic benefits from elimination of the disease should pay for the cost.
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