Scientists in Kenya to push African vaccine research

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Africa risks missing out on the rewards of a revolution in science unless it can win a bigger slice of funding for diseases like AIDS and malaria, according to researchers meeting in Kenya on Monday.

More than 100 scientists from around the globe were due to converge in Nairobi for the start of a four-day conference to pool knowledge on progress towards vaccines for diseases ravaging humans and animals across the continent.

“The aim is to how we can reduce the time-scale of delivery in what fundamentally remains a problem of science, and to concentrate the collective mind on a single momentous effort that makes a genuine difference,” said a statement from the South Africa-based Africa Genome Education Institute, which organised the conference.

But researchers say only a relatively small proportion of the money spent on developing vaccines is devoted to diseases like tuberculosis and malaria that claim millions of victims in Africa, with the rest going to drugs aimed at tackling diseases more prevalent among rich, Western consumers.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says less than 1 percent of total public and private funds spent on health research in recent years has been devoted to pneumonia, diarrhoea, tuberculosis and malaria, which account for more than 20 percent of the world’s disease burden.

Malaria and AIDS are similarly neglected, with only $300 million directed to vaccines for HIV/AIDS and $100 million for malaria research out of the $70 billion spent globally on health research in 1998, the WHO says.

Conference delegates, including Nobel prize-winning virologist David Baltimore of the California Institute of Technology, also aim to ensure diseases like diarrhoea, meningitis, leprosy, the Plague and parasites like tsetse fly that affect African cattle also win their share of attention.

Participants are also due to discuss ways of reversing the continent’s “brain drain” of African scientists who take up more lucrative posts abroad for want of opportunities to study the genetics of diseases affecting their home countries. 

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