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The menace of malaria

Feared since the days of the Roman Empire, malaria remains a major health problem. GlaxoSmithKline is supporting several major programmes to answer the challenge.

The humble mosquito may be tiny, but it carries some of the worst diseases in the world and kills more people than any other animal.

One of those diseases is malaria, an infection caused by a parasite that is carried from person to person by the bites of female mosquitoes. The symptoms of malaria include fever, shivering, vomiting and it also leads to anaemia. If left untreated, malaria can cause coma and death.

The scale of the problem is huge - over 40 per cent of the world’s population lives in areas affected by malaria and a million people a year die from its effects, mostly children under five years of age and pregnant women. Malaria is the world's leading cause of childhood mortality, killing one child every 30 seconds..

Along with tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, malaria is one of the World Health Organization's 'priority' diseases and it's not difficult to understand why.

About 90 per cent of acute malaria infections occur in sub-Saharan Africa, and the World Bank reports that malaria costs the continent more than US$12 billion yearly in healthcare expenditures and lost productivity, a figure roughly equivalent to all of the aid provided to the continent each year.

Some say that this puts much of the debate about helping Africa to prosper through aid and trade into stark perspective – simply stopping malaria would be an enormous boost.

Treatment and prevention of malaria

For many years, chloroquine had been the treatment of choice for malaria, although resistance of the malaria-causing parasites to this medicine has made it largely useless today.

There is a range of other drugs available for treatment as well as prevention of malaria and their use is decided by the level of resistance in the country where they are to be used. Despite this, access to medicines and the cost of treatment remains a barrier for people living in malaria-affected regions.

Prevention of malaria in endemic areas is focused on the use of preventative medicines for pregnant women and, increasingly, young children. Other methods include mosquito control using insecticides and larvicides and the prevention of bites by the use of mosquito nets impregnated with insecticide.

Developing new medicines through partnership

GlaxoSmithKline’s commitment to tackling diseases of the developing world involves a range of partnerships with other committed organisations. GSK has several projects underway at its laboratories in Tres Cantos, Spain, with the aim of developing products that treat resistant strains of the malaria parasite.

The Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) is a non-profit organisation created to discover, develop and deliver new and affordable treatments for malaria. GSK supports the MMV with research efforts aimed at identifying new medicines at Tres Cantos.

The search for a vaccine against malaria

As with many infectious diseases, the ultimate goal is to develop a vaccine that will protect large numbers of people against infection. GSK has been working on the development of a malaria vaccine for over 20 years.

The PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), a team backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and GSK Biologicals, the vaccines division of GSK, under the MVI is currently carrying out clinical trials on a malaria candidate vaccine with the hope that it will protect children against malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum (the most prevalent species) in Africa.

The candidate vaccine has already shown promising results in a study involving 2,000 children and infants in Mozambique over an 18 month follow-up period. This represents a breakthrough in this field demonstrating that a malaria vaccine is absolutely feasible.

Conducted in partnership with a number of leading African research institutions, new studies are underway in Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania to determine the best formulation and schedule for a large-scale phase III trial, currently scheduled for late 2008. If phase III trials are successful, GSK hopes that the candidate vaccine could be submitted for regulatory approval by 2011.

GSK’s ongoing commitment through partnership
Another effective way to control malaria is through education and changing behaviour. In 2001 GSK set up the African Malaria Partnership (AMP) which aims to build awareness of malaria and how it is spread and to promote effective behaviours in at-risk communities, such as the use of insecticide-treated bed nets and early treatment.

Programmes were implemented in eight African countries, but the scale of the malaria problem requires a broader response.

In November 2005 the AMP announced it was awarding £900,000 (US$1.5M) to the Malaria Consortium to lead an international advocacy programme to raise the profile of the malaria threat. 

Learning from the success of the programmes that brought HIV/AIDS to the world’s attention, this ‘Mobilising for Malaria’ initiative will similarly engage politicians, the media and the general public in order to tackle what has become the world’s invisible epidemic.

In Europe, the “Mobilising for Malaria” programme will focus on Belgium, France and the UK – the countries with the strongest ties to Africa. In Africa, the focus will be on Ethiopia, Cameroon, and other countries in Eastern, Western, and Central Africa.

“For too long the global community has failed to invest sufficient resources in fighting malaria, leaving it near the bottom of the world’s health agenda,” said JP Garnier, GSK’s former Chief Executive. “This new advocacy initiative will shine a spotlight on the immense damage caused by malaria.  The goal is to attract increased donor support for existing tools like mosquito nets and malaria treatments and ensure that they reach those people at greatest risk.”

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