Multilateral Initiative on Malaria Secretariat to move to Sweden
Stockholm University, the Karolinska Institute and the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control have been selected to serve as Secretariat of the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) for 2003 to 2005. MIM is an international alliance of research and public health agencies and African scientists that was established in 1997. Its objectives are to stimulate and support collaborative research to address the needs of public health programmes in malaria-endemic countries; to modernize communication systems used by the African research community; and to strengthen research capacity and human resources in those parts of the world where the disease is most widely spread, mainly in Africa, but also in South America and Asia. Malaria kills 2.7 million people each year and these numbers are on the rise due to insecticide resistance, anti-malarial drug resistance and environmental changes. Gerald T. Keusch, M.D. the American outgoing Director of MIM and of NIH's (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) Fogarty International Center, Maryland, said: 'The enormous burden of malaria and the disparity in global malaria research efforts is the rationale for MIM and the reason why US, European, Asian, South American, and African scientists have joined together in MIM to promote malaria research to develop new and improved control interventions.' The handover will be formally completed at the Third MIM Pan-African Malaria Conference on November 17 to 22, 2002, in Arusha, Tanzania.
Countries
Sweden