Every year, there are over 300 million new cases of clinical malaria. Medicines are losing the battle With the absence of a vaccine in the foreseeable future, drugs are, and will continue to be, a major tool for malaria control. However, current medicines are losing the battle against malaria. Drugs for treating infection and controlling the symptoms of malaria are losing their efficacy as the malaria parasite is slowly but surely building up resistance to them. New drugs, which are affordable to communities in areas of high malaria transmission, are urgently needed if the impact of malaria is to be contained.
Malaria is a disease of the poor.
Its greatest burden falls on those who can least afford to pay for prevention or treatment. The average cost of discovering and getting a new drug to the market is estimated to be at least 500 million US dollars. With little prospect of an adequate commercial return in those parts of the world where malaria prevails, the traditional methods of obtaining drugs through the pharmaceutical industry is not working. The problem needs to be addressed in a different way. MMV offers a new approach MMV offers a new approach to the discovery and development of medicines for malaria.