Malaria research accounts for about one-third of 1 percent of the total amount of money spent on medical research and development, even though it accounts for 3 percent of all the productive years of life lost to diseases, AP quoted a new report as saying. The report, the first comprehensive analysis of malaria research funding, was released Sunday as the field's biggest private donor, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, announced US$258.3 million (¤212.8 million) in new grants to accelerate the development of new drugs, a vaccine and better mosquito control methods. «It's really a tragedy that the world has done so little to stop this disease that kills 2,000 African children every day,» said Microsoft Corp. chief Bill Gates. «If those children were in rich countries, we would have headlines, we'd take action. We wouldn't rest until every child was protected.» Malaria causes an estimated 500 million bouts of illness a year, kills an African child every 30 seconds and costs an estimated US$12 billion (¤9.9 billion) a year in lost gross domestic product. «The report confirms what has been clear, and that is that the world isn't investing nearly enough in malaria R&D,» Gates said. --mor 1338 Local Time 1038 GMT
