Thai-British University Collaboration to Receive $4.7 Million to Expand Promising Malaria Treatment in Thailand

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Researchers from the Faculty of Tropical Medicine at Mahidol University in Thailand and from Oxford University in the United Kingdom, together with the Communicable Disease Control Department (CDC) of the Thai Ministry of Public Health, will receive $4.7 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support a promising new initiative to control malaria in Thailand.

A 20-year research collaboration between the two universities, supported by the Wellcome Trust of Great Britain, has shown remarkable success in controlling falciparum malaria - the most serious form of the disease - in camps for displaced persons located along the border with Myanmar.

"This award is an endorsement of a pioneering initiative which offers real hope for the control of malaria in Southeast Asia and perhaps beyond," said Dr. Mike Dexter, Director of the Wellcome Trust. "It's a race to stay ahead of drug-resistant malaria, and this Thai-British collaboration shows how scientists working in partnership with governments and other organizations can make a direct and rapid impact on the health of the population."

The key to this achievement has been the use of a combination of drugs containing a derivative of artemisinin or "ginghaosu," an anti-malarial derived from a Chinese plant. These combinations have proved highly effective in controlling malaria and have halted the development of drug resistance.

"We are greatly encouraged by our success to date," said Nicholas White, Professor of Tropical Medicine at Mahidol and Oxford Universities, "and we are excited by the opportunity to apply this new strategy on a much larger scale."

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant will help the Thai CDC and the research team to extend this new control strategy throughout Tak province in Northwestern Thailand. The most malaria-affected province in the country, Tak also harbors the greatest number of drug-resistant falciparum malaria parasites in the world.

"Malaria is a critical health issue in Thailand," said Korn Dabbaransi, Minister of Health. "We are eager to determine whether this new approach will be successful on a broader scale and look forward to partnering with the research team."

Building on the established network of village health volunteers, the program will use recently developed simple methods of rapid malaria diagnosis and will provide the new combination treatments to those who are diagnosed with malaria. If this initiative proves successful in controlling falciparum malaria in Tak province, it will then become a model for malaria control throughout the region.

"Around the world, malaria takes an enormous toll, both in terms of people's health and the economic impacts where the disease is prevalent," said Dr. Gordon Perkin, Director of the Global Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "We are seeking out promising research to improve diagnosis, treatment and prevention in order to reduce the global burden of this disease."

This donation brings together the world's two largest charitable organizations in a battle against the most significant parasite affecting humans.

The Wellcome Trust is one of the world's largest research-funding charities. It funds biomedical research, supporting more than 5000 researchers at 300 locations in 42 different countries, and seeks to ensure that the potential healthcare benefits of this research are fully realized. Much of the Trust's international research is aimed at tackling infectious and non-communicable diseases prevalent in the developing world. Working in partnership with local governments and other organizations, the Trust supports research into basic and clinical biomedicine, veterinary science and social and demographic change.