ISGlobal and the struggle against malaria
The research institute working on tropical diseases presents a progress report after five years on the job
Scientific advances have reduced deaths from malaria around the world by 60% in 15 years, according to the Director of the WHO Global Malaria Programme, Pedro L. Alonso. Work into the development of an efficient vaccine includes ISGlobal Barcelona, the public medicine institute set up by institutions and the Obra Social La Caixa five years ago. Yesterday, the organisation presented its progress report.
Alonso, the first director of ISGlobal, yesterday appeared with the current head, Antoni Plasència, and the director general of the Obra Social La Caixa, Jaume Giró. The fight against malaria is a pressing area of global health, as it causes 400,000 deaths around the world every year. “We have made progress but it is still unfinished,” said Alonso. The use of mosquito nets in tropical cities, improvements in pesticides, and research like that carried out by ISGlobal “can help overcome malaria, because it is extraordinarily complicated to develop vaccines,” said Alonso.
Nevertheless, ISGlobal is tracking the impact of a vaccine in Mozambique, in a population of 65,000 people, in order to check its development. “It will be an extra imperfect tool,” said the head of the WHO's malaria programme, “among the others we are using around the world.”
In five years, the institute has become one of Europe's four most important research centres into tropical and global health. ISGlobal depends on subsidies from the state and Catalan governments, the Universitat de Barcelona, the Hospital Clínic and the Obra Social La Caixa. The centre also does research into other areas, such as Chagas disease or the almost forgotten disease of yaws (a type of skin infection), as well as identifying new antibiotics, among other things.