Gates Gift Expected for Malaria Drug
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Source: ahila-net@who.int
Associated Press article - December 13, 2004
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 12 (AP) - The Bill and Melinda Gates Founda-
tion is expected to donate US$ 42.6 million on Monday to a novel
non-profit drug company that hopes to make a cheaper malaria
treatment by applying a new biotechnology recipe to an ancient
Chinese remedy.
The company, the Institute of OneWorld Health, will try to turn
the genetic engineering work of Jay Keasling of the University
of California, Berkeley, into an inexpensive and effective drug
to fight malaria in the third world.
Dr. Keasling is developing a new way to manufacture artemisinin,
a malaria fighter made from finely ground wormwood plants. The
Chinese first extracted artemisinin from the sweet wormwood
plant for medicinal use more than 2,000 years ago, and since
then it has been used for a variety of ailments including hemor-
rhoids, coughs and fevers.
But the method is expensive, time-consuming and limited by ac-
cess to wormwood. So Dr. Keasling and his colleagues are working
on a way to eliminate the need for the plant by splicing its
chemical-producing genes and yeast genes into E. coli and ulti-
mately coaxing artemisinin from this formula.
Each year, 300 million to 500 million new cases of malaria are
diagnosed, the World Health Organization said.
It costs about US$ 2.40 a patient to treat malaria with a three-
day drug regimen that includes artemisinin. Many third-world ma-
laria sufferers cannot afford the treatment, and Ms. Hale said
the Gates money would be used to develop within five years a
treatment that costs under US$ 1 a patient.
Request for information material
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Hi All,
Kindly post daily reports, documents, and other reading materi-
als on HIV/AIDS vaccine, Care giving, Jobs, Prevalence, etc. to
Sociology department staff.
c/o Stephen Bogere
Administrative Assistant
Makerere University
Sociology Department
P.O.Box 7062 Kampala, Uganda
Tel. +256-41-540-650
mailto:sociology@ss.mak.ac.ug
Request for information material (2)
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Hi Stephen,
If you go to web sites like Youth Development, Aegis, The Body,
AidsMEds.com:
http://www.aegis.org
http://www.thebody.com
http://www.aidsmeds.com
You can find enormous information about all what you like to
find.
Warmly
Ingrid Kloet
New Mexico Poz Coalition
1193 Morning Dr.
Santa Fe, NM 87507, USA
Phone/ Fax: +1-505-438-4767
Cell Phone: +1-505-280-2218
mailto:ingrid@spinn.net
http://www.planetpoz.org
http://www.gnpplus.net
http://www.actalive.org
http://www.onevillage.org
Request for information material (3)
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Dear Stephen Bogere,
Copious Africa-relevant information on HIV/AIDS vaccine, preva-
lence, care-giving, etc. are posted daily online at the following
sites:
* Datelinehealth-Africa.net:
http://www.datelinehealth-africa.net/betav1.0/resources/hivaids.asp
* AllAfrica.com: http://allafrica.com/aids/
* Irin PlusNews: http://www.plusnews.org/
* Aids Educational Global Information System (Aegis):
http://www.aegis.org
* Kaiser Daily HIV Report:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_hiv.cfm
and more.
There are also many vibrant African listservs dedicated to dis-
cussing and sharing HIV/AIDS related information. A few are
listed below:
* AF-AIDS
* Kenya-aids@yahoogroups.com
* kca-aids@yahoogroups.com
* eforum@nigeria-aids.org
* africa-aids@yahoogroups.com
I recommend that you and members of your sociology department
avail yourselves of these resources directly.
A. Odutola
mailto:chpss_abo2@yahoo.com