[Kenya] Gates to donate $258m towards fighting malaria

from African News Dimension

The fight against malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/Aids has got a financial boost from an international foundation.

Microsoft Corporation founder Bill Gates has pledged $258.3m for research and development to combat malaria in Africa. The cash will be used to test the world‘s first vaccine against the mosquito-borne disease.

Gates, who is providing three grants via the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, said it was a ‘disgrace’ the world has allowed malaria deaths to double in the last 21 years, when so much could be done to prevent this drug resistant tropical killer disease.

Malaria kills 2,000 children everyday. The largest of the grants, $ 107.6m, would go to vaccine initiative. The malaria vaccine has produced promising results in clinical trials but will not be available until after 2010.

Another $100m would go to work to accelerate development of several promising new drugs, while $ 50.7m would pay for research to first-track development of better insecticides and other mosquito control methods.

Locally, the foundation supports many health research projects. One such initiative is the quality of reporting on HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis by journalists. Through a number of workshops undertaken through sponsorship by International Women Media Foundation IWMF, the quality of reporting on the three diseases has been enhanced and has also improved. This is because of six workshops, which have taken place in Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa. The seventh workshop is slated for Nakuru this month.

Malaria remains he number one killer with a 50 per cent outpatients attendance and 34,000 deaths annually, said Dr Nicholas Ochieng’ of Kenyatta National Hospital.

But Ochieng’ said the control measures, which include the use of treated nets have reduced malaria cases by 50 percent and the dearth rate by 20 per cent. He said there was need to control mosquitoes in order to reduce mosquito human contacts and prompt treatment of the disease. IWMF is a network of thousands of women journalists working internationally to elevate the status of women in the media.