Bayer: Science For A Better Life - Image Campaign

Malaria has a long history of claiming famous victims. Alexander the Great died of malaria in 323 BC; Alarich, King of the Visigoths, succumbed more than 700 years later. For a very long time it was thought that the bad air ("mala aria" in Italian) surrounding swamps was responsible for the fever that affected people who lived there. It was discovered later that the disease is caused by single-celled organisms (Plasmodia) transmitted in the saliva of mosquitoes. Once these organisms are inside the body, they multiply in the cells of the liver and then move on to attack the red blood cells. As a result, masses of blood cells decompose at the same time, producing a burst of fever.

Nowadays about 40 percent of the world's population live in regions where malaria is endemic. Every year, 300 million to 500 million people develop this disease. An estimated two million die as a result. 3,000 children are infected every day; that's one every 30 seconds. 90 percent of the victims of this potentially fatal tropical disease live in sub-Saharan Africa.

Those are the sobering facts about a disease that is still presenting the medical world with a challenge even today. There have been many attempts to treat malaria. One of the oldest approaches was to use quinine obtained from the bark of the Cinchona tree. Bayer also has a long tradition of working to combat malaria. Bayer brought the active substance atebrin onto the market in 1932, and Resochin was patented in 1937.

But the Plasmodia always managed to produce strains resistant to the drugs. To this day, intensive research is focusing on the discovery of new ways to treat malaria, such as modern combination therapies. Another scientific objective is to develop vaccines which could provide protection against infection.

In both cases, research is concentrating on the pathogen. The parasites are transmitted by female Anopheles mosquitoes. They pierce the victim's skin to gain access to the blood vessels, and suck up protein-rich blood which they need to produce eggs. The malaria pathogen enters the blood when the skin is broken.

There are about 400 species of Anopheles mosquitoes, some 60 of which transmit malaria. Mosquitoes are nocturnal creatures, and can locate humans using their sense of smell at a distance of up to 70 meters. The carbon monoxide exhaled by people alerts mosquitoes to their presence, and the perspiration on human skin is a powerful attractant, particularly the lactic acid which it contains.

For many years, Bayer CropScience has had a successful research and development program focusing on safe and effective substances to control Anopheles mosquitoes.

Its achievements were achnowledged in September 2007, when Bayer CropScience signed an agreement with the Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC) to collaborate on two projects aimed at finding new effective solutions in the fight against malaria and other vector borne diseases. The IVCC is a consortium of leading institutions in the field of the development of vector control products and information systems formed with a grant of $50.7 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The strategy of the consortium is to identify opportunities for the development of new products, strategies and tools for improved vector control and to enable and support those projects through developing partnerships that will provide the resources to bring them to fruition.

The first Bayer CropScience project, in partnership with the Medical Research Council, South Africa, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is aimed at finding a long-lasting solution for Indoor Residual Spraying for mosquito control. The second Bayer CropScience project includes LSTM and the University of Liverpool as partners to modify current active ingredients to solve the resistance problem which makes the combat against mosquitoes which transfer malaria and other diseases less and less effective.