Maputo — Mozambican Health Minister Francisco Songane said on Monday that fully involving African scientists and providing them with resources is essential if they are to develop their full individual and institutional capacities in high level research for curing malaria.

Addressing the opening session of a meeting of researchers from projects funded under the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) in Africa, Songane said "bringing together African scientists to share their results and research experiences is a good way to encourage the creation of south-south networks in the efforts to fight against malaria".

"I am certain that this growing malaria researchers community will form a sustainable basis to continue research to fight against malaria", he added.

The scientific director of the Mozambican National Health Institute, Ricardo Thompson, told AIM that this meeting, the sixth of its kind, "is aimed at exchanging experiences in various types of research and possible approaches to the fight against malaria, a disease that kills between one and three million people worldwide every year, most of whom are children aged under five".

He said that the idea of this initiative is to give African scientists the opportunity to become active players in the drafting of projects to fight against malaria, since this disease is at its deadliest in Africa. The world scientific community, Thompson added, has become aware that it is "crucial" include African researchers in this fight.

Since the launching of the initiative, five years ago, African scientists have submitted 23 proposals to MIM, but most of them were found to be unworkable because of the high costs involved, he said.

The two day meeting gathers international experts of the special programme for Training on Tropical Disease Research(TDR) of the World Health Organization (WHO), and researchers of the MIM initiative.

The meeting is to assess the progress of the research projects on malaria approved in 2000 and 2001, and to review financing strategies for the TDR work group, while exchanging experiences between the participants.

The gathering includes researchers and malaria experts from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Ghana, Italy, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Sweden, Tanzania, Uganda, the United States, and Zambia.