The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will give $168.7 million for research into a malaria vaccine, Bill Gates announced Thursday at the United Nations Summit.The Seattle-based foundation will give the money to PATH for its Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI). PATH is working with GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals to create a vaccine called RTS,S that Seattle-based PATH hopes will become the first approved malaria vaccine.
“I’m very hopeful that the malaria vaccine currently in advanced testing will be proven effective, but that will be just the first step. Now it’s time to develop a new generation of vaccines that are even more effective, and could someday help eradicate malaria altogether,” said Gates, co-chair of the foundation, at the UN Millennium Development Goals Malaria Summit in New York City.
