The following report published in The Guardian today provides encouraging global health news — GSK’s new vaccine against malaria has been shown to halve the risk of malaria.
Malaria vaccine could save millions of children’s lives
Millions of small children’s lives could be saved by a new vaccine that has been shown to halve the risk of malaria in the first large-scale trials across seven African countries.
The long-awaited results of the largest-ever malaria vaccine study, involving 15,460 babies and small children, show that it could massively reduce the impact of the much-feared killer disease. Malaria takes nearly 800,000 lives every year – most of them children under five. It damages many more.
The vaccine has been in development for two decades – the brainchild of scientists at the UK drug company GlaxoSmithKline, which has promised to sell it at no more than a fraction over cost-price, with the excess being ploughed back into further tropical disease research. (more…)
Filed under: Commentary on news & events, Innovation, Public health | Tagged: global health, malaria, research-based pharmaceutical industry, vaccine | Leave a Comment »

International treaty signed to combat growing counterfeit drug industry
According to a report by The Moscow Times, many European leaders have recently agreed to cooperate in the fight against counterfeit medicines:
Filed under: Commentary on news & events, Counterfeit drugs, Europe | Tagged: access to medicines, Counterfeit drugs, counterfeit medicines, Europe | Leave a Comment »