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Gates Pledges More Money for Malaria Research

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said Sunday that it would sharply increase its investment in malaria research, awarding $258.3 million in grants to hasten ways of preventing and treating the disease. Counting the new money, the Gates Foundation will soon be providing more than a third of the world`s annual research budget for malaria.

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. "It`s really a tragedy that the world has done so little to stop this disease that kills 2,000 African children every day," Gates said in a conference call with reporters. "If those children were in rich countries, we`d have headlines, we`d take action, and we wouldn`t rest until every child was protected."

One grant, for $107.6 million, will fund accelerated work on what could be the first malaria vaccine, under development in Rixensart, Belgium, by the biologicals division of GlaxoSmithKline PLC, the huge London drug company. The accelerated timetable means that vaccine could be ready in as little as six years.