Volunteer to get malaria
I’ve heard of paid research studies, but Seattle Biomedical Research Institute is about to take it to the extreme. Finding a vaccine for malaria is very important for third-world countries, where millions die every year of this mosquito-borne illness. So why would any amount of money tempt you to expose yourself? Well, the good news is, we don’t live in a third world country. If the test vaccine is not effective, and you do develop the disease, it would probably be similar to the flu. In a similar project at Walter Reed, not one person has gotten “seriously ill”.
You may be motivated by the $2,000, or by a sense of helping the global community, or by a combination of both. But don’t get too excited. The first trial will be held more than a year from now, with six volunteers.
Additional trials would require about 26 volunteers each. All of this is being funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. I could make a joke here, like “First they brought us Windows, now they bring us malaria” but this seriously is a great cause. Bill and Melinda Gates announced in October they would seek worldwide eradication of the disease rather than just control. Their foundation has committed $860 million to malaria programs and another $650 million to support the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Seattle volunteers will be paid an estimated $2,000 or more to hold a paper cup containing infected mosquitoes against their arm, waiting for the insects to bite. Symptoms usually develop within nine to 11 days, and volunteers will be treated for malaria when the first parasites show up in their blood. The treatments last three days. At this time the SBRI website only has information on how to donate money, not your body, so stay tuned for more information.
March 6th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
[...] world by Lynn Glessner If you want to help save the world, but aren’t willing to able to risk infecting yourself with malaria to do so, there still may be a way. The Gates Foundation has dedicated $100 million to encourage [...]