Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Sanaria Inc.

Here are some people working towards a truly noble goal- Sanaria Inc. is dedicated to developing a malaria vaccine. Malaria still kills about a million people annually, primarily in sub Saharan Africa. It was wiped out in North America and Europe through draining swamps and spraying DDT. These things are being done, and should be done in Africa. But ultimately, the only thing that will end human malaria deaths is a vaccine. They have had fairly impressive success with metabolically active, non-replicating (=attenuated or weakened) Plasmodium falciparum sporozoites, and could be on the right track. They are currently the only company dedicated entirely to finding a vaccine, which is noteworthy.

(You might notice that the name is a clever play on malaria, which means ''bad air''. Sanaria would mean ''healthy air''.)

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