.... but ......
Was reading some interesting piece in my favorite daily ‘The Standard’, on of Kenya’s premier newspapers, on how leading Kenyan medical scientists are on brink of making a major breakthrough in the fight against killer malaria. The ‘story’ goes that these medical honchos are on the brink of unveiling a malaria vaccine that will stop the death of 90 children who die of malaria every day and stem the loss of 170 million working days lost to malaria annually in Kenya! Amazing stuff, but will this Kenyan (read African) ‘major break-through’ be allowed to be adopted in the World Health Organization journals seeing that the worlds leading pharmaceutical companies’ profits are at stake here?
My mind quickly thinks about the American situation where major pharmaceutical companies and medical lobbyists are literally holding the US government at ransom in regard to President Obama’s plan of offering public funded and affordable healthcare solutions to the very common and poor American who cannot afford to Medicare and medic-aid! The American medical ‘hostage situation’ in my opinion is all about the profits that these huge pharmaceutical companies will definitely loose when Obama’s plan comes to light!
Fast Forward to Kenya: That these same pharmaceutical companies, that are said to have partnered in formulating this vaccine, and who have provided Africa with umpteen malaria vaccines, could basically allow the Kenyan vaccine to be adopted into medical circles is, to me a real pipe dream and a far cry from the truth! What would literally stop these honchos from spending billions of dollars on projects that will never see the light of day, just in order that they ‘keep tabs’ with what’s going on the ground and be seen to be ‘involved in partnering the break through? ?’
And with Kenya’s lobbying history and record for supporting its own speaking loudly for itself, I highly doubt (and I risk being labeled a pessimist here!) that this grand idea will see the light of day, sorry to say so!
Malaria, killing up to 3,000 people every day in Africa, has been a real cash cow for these pharmaceutical honchos who have ‘colluded’ to ensure that Malaria I never going to be wiped out of Africa, not in this lifetime. From manufacturing vaccines, and telling us how they are ‘free’, to the distribution of malaria treated bed nets to all the services and components that revolve around Malaria, people have been happy seeing those profits sore year in year out. And then some gizzer African scientists in Kenya, in collaboration with some medical world players, ‘suddenly’ discover some vaccine that will eat into their profits, and they are not supposed to ‘kill’ that plan like yesterday, is a picture I can’t fathom not happening!
And with many ‘corrupt’ countries in Africa spending a huge percentage of their health budgets on malaria, this might just be a ripe avenue for these honchos to exploit in ‘killing’ this Kenya dream that is bound to save millions of lives.
They say the new vaccine, named RTS,S is a result of ‘partnership’ between leading African institutions that include Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri), America’s Center for Disease Control (CDC), the Path Malaria Vaccine Initiative and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Biological, with the support of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The vaccine, which is in the third phase of trial and has shown efficacy levels of 53 per cent, has taken more than 20 years of research and development. There is no proven vaccine for malaria to date.
Lets wait and see…..