SEATTLE - Eradicating malaria is not a vague, unrealistic aspiration but a tough, ambitious goal that can be reached within the next few decades, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said this week.
In an interview at his Gates Foundation's Malaria Forum in Seattle, the Microsoft founder. who now spends his time and money on global health and development projects, rejected scepticism about focusing his aim on wiping out the killer mosquito-borne disease.
"It's not a near-term goal," Gates said, but one that can "certainly" be achieved within his lifetime.
Malaria kills about 780,000 people a year - the vast majority of them children and babies in sub-Saharan Africa - and is endemic in about 100 countries.
Gates said a renewed focus and substantial increases in funding for malaria, partly spurred by his call in 2007 for global eradication of the disease, was steadily "shrinking the malaria map" and would continue to do so.
He pointed to Madagascar, Papua New Guinea and Ethiopia as "likely early candidates" for being able to eliminate the disease from within their borders in the near future.
Giving a boost to anti-malaria efforts was news on Tuesday of an experimental vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline that halved the risk of African children getting malaria.
However, experts stressed the vaccine was no quick fix for eradicating malaria. The new shot is less effective against the disease than other vaccines are against common infections such as polio and measles. - Reuters
Malaria 'can be beaten'
SEATTLE - Eradicating malaria is not a vague, unrealistic aspiration but a tough, ambitious goal that can be reached within the next few decades, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said this week.
In an interview at his Gates Foundation's Malaria Forum in Seattle, the Microsoft founder. who now spends his time and money on global health and development projects, rejected scepticism about focusing his aim on wiping out the killer mosquito-borne disease.
"It's not a near-term goal," Gates said, but one that can "certainly" be achieved within his lifetime.
Malaria kills about 780,000 people a year - the vast majority of them children and babies in sub-Saharan Africa - and is endemic in about 100 countries.
Gates said a renewed focus and substantial increases in funding for malaria, partly spurred by his call in 2007 for global eradication of the disease, was steadily "shrinking the malaria map" and would continue to do so.
He pointed to Madagascar, Papua New Guinea and Ethiopia as "likely early candidates" for being able to eliminate the disease from within their borders in the near future.
Giving a boost to anti-malaria efforts was news on Tuesday of an experimental vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline that halved the risk of African children getting malaria.
However, experts stressed the vaccine was no quick fix for eradicating malaria. The new shot is less effective against the disease than other vaccines are against common infections such as polio and measles. - Reuters
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