WHO Venture to Develop New Malaria Drugs, The Associated Press

GENEVA - The UN health agency on Wednesday launched a foundation aimed at encouraging 
research into malaria drugs.
        The Medicines for Malaria Venture, whose sponsors include the World Bank and the 
Rockefeller Foundation, aims to put one new anti-malarial drug onto the market every five years, 
at a price that can be afforded by the poor.
        ÒMMV has been created because the increased costs of developing and registering 
pharmaceutical products, coupled with the prospects of inadequate commercial returns, have 
resulted in the withdrawal of the majority of researched-based pharmaceutical companies from 
investment in tropical diseases, said Gro Harlem Brundtland, director-general for the World 
Health Organization.
        To meet its objectives, the foundation needs to raise $15 million a year by 2001, and then $30 
million a year afterwards.
        The move symbolizes the start of a new era of partnership between the pharmaceutical 
industry and WHO to bring about real improvements in world health, said Lodewijk de Vink, 
president of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers.
        Public health organizations are expected to provide most of the money, while private drugs 
companies will offer expertise, resources and commercial know-how.
        Mosquitoes are growing more resistant to insecticides as are parasites to drugs. WHO says 
malaria kills about 1 million people a year worldwide, behind only AIDS and tuberculosis among 
communicable diseases. Almost all malaria deaths are in Africa, and most victims are children 
under the age of 5.