Inventor of malaria vaccine optimistic

Joe Cohen, one of the inventors of the RTS,S malaria vaccine and vice president for R&D at GSK writes in the Uganda Monitor

I am deeply convinced that public-private partnerships are an important mechanism for the development of new vaccines for the developing world, and I hope our partnership inspires other teams of researchers to work together to solve other urgent global health problems.As excited as I was to tour our malaria vaccine manufacturing facility last year, I am sure that feeling will pale in comparison to how I feel when the first dose of the vaccine is given to a child.It is heartening to think that the biggest challenge facing a malaria vaccine today is not scientific, but logistical.Over the next few years, the world needs to move quickly so the production of the RTS,S vaccine can be scaled up so it is available to the 75 million babies born in Africa each year.