Brown on Advance Market Commitments

Brown to push advance vaccine purchases at G7Mon Oct 31, 2005 11:52 AM GMTLONDON (Reuters) - Chancellor Gordon Brown said on Monday he would push for rich nations to commit to making advance purchases of life-saving vaccines for poor children at a G7 meeting in December.The move would provide an additional incentive for research and development into new vaccines, following a new $258.3 million (145.3 million pound) cash injection for the fight against malaria by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates.Brown said Britain would press for further measures to build on the Gates donation, including advanced purchasing schemes, at the final meeting of its G7 presidency. Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers will meet in London on December 3.The latest malaria grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation include new cash to test the world's first vaccine against the mosquito-borne disease.Gates said it was a "disgrace" that the world had allowed malaria deaths to double in the last 20 years, when so much could be done to prevent the disease.Malaria kills 2,000 African children every day.The largest of three new grants, $107.6 million, will go to a vaccine initiative working with GlaxoSmithKline on late-stage clinical trials of its experimental vaccine, Mosquirix.The vaccine has already produced promising results in clinical trials but would not be available until after 2010.Another $100 million will be ploughed into work to accelerate the development of several promising new drugs, while $50.7 million will pay for research to fast-track development of improved insecticides and other mosquito control methods.