Bill Gates is opening windows on world health

LONDON, August 7 (Science Analysed) Just three experts with worldwide contacts are making the key recommendations in distributing some US$550 million a year from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to deserving causes in global health.

And one of those recommendations recently (31 July) was to give the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) US$40 million for work in malaria, a grant which was "twenty times bigger than what we'd normally call a large grant, which is typically US$1-2 million" said Professor Eleanor Riley of the LSHTM, co-director of the malaria project. The funding is so large that the School will have to employ more people with financial and administrative skills to handle the project.

"First it's for field trials of new drugs, vaccines and insecticides against malaria" said Riley. "The problem has been that trial moneys were always spread over many different institutions, and it's always ...