E jane Morris

• E Jane Morris

• http://www.acgt.co.za/sami

Scale of the malaria problem

• 107 endemic countries with 3.2 billion people at risk (40% of world’s population)

• At least 1 million people die in Africa each year from malaria

• Over 200 million clinical malaria cases in Africa each year

• Over 4 million people in SA live in malaria areas (10% of the population)

• Almost 80 million cases each year in the Southern Africa malaria control area

• Climate change will increase population at risk in Southern Africa fourfold by 2020

Global distribution of malaria risk

Current situation

Building for the future:

The South African Malaria Initiative

• A network of researchers from 16 institutions in South Africa

• Seed funding provided by SA Department of Science and Technology

• Focusing on development of drugs, diagnostics, and molecular epidemiology

• Supported by core expertise groups

• Capacity building and training a key component

The discovery pipeline in SAMI

From Knowledge to Innovation in SAMI

From Knowledge to Innovation in SAMI

Early successes

• Drug delivery system able to reverse chloroquine resistance

• Provisional patent covering anti-malarial activity of a drug registered for other uses

• Novel RDT ready for field screening by mid-2008

• Novel in vitro HTS assay validated

• Drug target accepted for in silico virtual screening (WISDOM)