Malaria

Malaria is a life-threatening parasitic disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes. Its symptoms are characterized by extreme exhaustion associated with fits of high fever, sweating, shaking chills, and anemia.

Malaria parasites destroy red blood cells in the body, leading to anemia. Without adequate treatment, infected red blood cells block vessels to the brain or damage other vital organs, often resulting in death. In some instances people in highly endemic areas who are infected frequently may develop immunity to the disease and become asymptomatic carriers of malaria, contributing to epidemics.

The Global Burden of Malaria

Malaria causes 300 -500 million acute illnesses and over one million deaths annually. Ninety percent of deaths due to malaria occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, but there is also high prevalence in countries of Asia and Latin America. Today approximately 40% of the world's population (mostly those living in the world's poorest countries) is susceptible to malaria. Malaria is endemic in nearly 100 countries worldwide and notably so in 28 countries on the African continent.

In many countries, malaria is the leading killer of children under 5 years of age. Many children who survive an episode of severe malaria may suffer from learning impairments or brain damage.

Pregnant women and their unborn children are also particularly vulnerable to malaria. More than 45 million women—30 million in Africa—become pregnant in malaria-endemic areas each year. Malaria during pregnancy can cause maternal anemia, impaired fetal growth, spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, premature birth and low birth weight. In sub-Saharan Africa, up to 40% of low birth weight is due to maternal malaria, resulting in up to 400,000 infant deaths every year.

Older, inexpensive, single drugs such as chloroquine are increasingly resistant to new strains of the disease. Currently, the most effective treatments involve combinations of artemisinin-based therapies and other antimalarials to prolong each drug’s effectiveness and delay resistance.

OneWorld Health’s Response

OneWorld Health is focusing on the development of affordable medicines that will effectively treat and/or prevent malaria in vulnerable populations.

Developing A Consistent, Affordable Second Source of Artemisinin

A unique partnership coordinated by the Institute for OneWorld Health will for the first time apply synthetic biology, a cutting-edge technology, to help solve a drug supply problem in many countries of the world.

The Artemisinin Project aims to produce a reliable supply of an essential component of the World Health Organization's recommended treatment for malaria—artemisinin combination therapies, or ACTs—at an affordable price.

View details of the Artemisinin Project

Artemisinin is an antimalarial drug derived from the wormwood plant (A. annua), which is found in parts of Asia and Africa. Its cultivation, harvesting and extraction are time consuming and labor intensive. Lack of access to this vital compound prevents millions of people in the developing world from receiving life-saving ACTs.

Armed with a US $42.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, OneWorld Health is collaborating with the California Institute of Quantitative Biomedical Research (QB3) at the University of California, Berkeley, Amyris, and sanofi-aventis to design a robust process to use fermentation combined with innovative synthetic chemistry to produce artemisinin.

View details of the grant announcement

Our goal is to create a stable, second source of artemisinin to supplement existing natural sources. It is hoped that this source of semisynthetic artemisinin will be more affordable for drug manufacturers. In turn, this will help reduce the price of ACTs, making them more accessible to people in malaria afflicted countries.

Read the iOWH, Amyris, Sanofi-aventis Partnership Announcement