Every time Fredros Okumu spends his free time in a mosquito infested field, the world moves a step towards finding the elusive long term cure for malaria.

Dr Okumu, a Kenyan researcher at the Tanzania-based Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) believes a breakthrough in the search for a cure for the killer disease lies in a deeper understanding of the outdoor behaviours of the parasite.

"Because malaria-transmitting mosquitoes spend most part of their lives outside human dwellings than inside, my research aims at creating outdoor trap sites to attract and catch breeding, resting and feeding mosquitoes," he told Business Daily in Arusha two weeks ago.

While more than a dozen other IHI scientists are currently working on mosquito-related projects, the joint proposal between Dr Okumu and Robert Sumaye, another IHI-based researcher, is set to raise the international research profile of the institution.

IHI already holds the 2008 Jury of the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation for its struggle to break the link between disease and poverty.

The two scholars are among hundreds of scientists from Africa, Europe and Asia whose researches have been endorsed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as holding the potential to provide the world with cheap but effective solution to the chronic diseases currently ravaging developing countries.

In the multi million programme dubbed "the grand challenges exploration in global health," the Foundation is giving out grants of $100,000 (Sh7.6) to each of the promising researchers who dedicate their time to inventing effective but inexpensive health tools that will be easy to distribute and simple to use in developing countries.

If successful, the foundation gives each of the researchers at least $1 million to pursue their projects to conclusion.

The foundation says it has an initial budget of $100 for projects to improve global health.

Malaria is one of the world's deadliest diseases, killing nearly 900,000 people a year, most of them children in tropical Africa.

Scientists worldwide, backed by generous grants such as Bill Gates', believe they are finally zeroing in on the vector.

While tuberculosis, HIV Aids and other infectious diseases have been blamed for stifling economic development in poor countries and are also targeted in the renewed campaigns to invent vaccines and cheap cures that will be affordable to low income earners, malaria is also earning its place.

Dr Okumu won the award in Round Two of the Exploration Challenge whose winners were announced in May, this year.

From Africa, he is fighting malaria alongside scientists named in the round two like Dr Oladele Akogun, from the Nigeria 's Federal University of Technology's Centre for Research and Development.

Dr Akogun is seeking to develop a fever kit for use by nomadic communities to help them diagnose and treat fevers.

"The simple kit will be equipped with diagnostic tools and pre-recorded treatment instructions written in local languages to help nomadic healthcare providers to easily distinguish between malaria and other causes of fevers," he said.

Drug resistance

He reckons that by diagnosing the disease properly, appropriate treatment will be directed towards eradicating it, thereby limiting cases of drug resistance usually attributed to misdiagnosis.

But Dr Elijah Songok, a researcher based at the Kenya Medical Research Institute who also won the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation award alongside Dr Okumu says his worry is to come up with affordable way to prevent or cure HIV infection.

Dr Songok hopes his breakthrough will come when he finally succeeds in tying the loose ends in the preliminary studies which have already indicated that commercial sex workers (in Majengo slums) tend to have natural resistance to the HIV virus.

"This natural resistance to HIV may be linked to genetic markers for type 2 diabetes," said Dr Songok.

Also working to create simple HIV Drugs and delivery systems that will limit drug resistance is Ms Missi Oukem, a scientist based at the Cameroon-based Chantal Biya International Reference Centre for Research on Prevention and Management of Hiv / Aids.

Last month, the foundation announced the winners of Round 3 of the programme that will see 76 new researchers awarded similar grants to support their proposals.

The grantees, paraded in Arusha two weeks ago were selected from a pool of 3,000 applicants from universities, research institutes, nonprofit organisations, and private companies from Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Finland, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden and the UK.

Among the new winners are four African researchers --Jackey Obey from University of E A Baraton, Peter Lubega from South African based Adhoc Works Foundation, Margaret Njoroge from Med Biotech Laboratories in Uganda and Sungano Mharakurwa of Macha Malaria institute, Zambia.

All the round 3 researchers from Africa are working on simple malaria treatment solutions.

Their nomination brought to 262 the researchers who have been awarded Grand Challenges Explorations grants.

"This programme will remove biggest stumbling blocks in global health and replace them with promising new vaccines and treatments," said Dr Tachi Yamada, president of the Gates Foundation's Global Health Programme.

But going by the experience of established researchers, the developing world will have to wait much longer for scientists to break the inequality that persists in the world today as the process of developing cheap drugs requires time and huge capital investment.

According to researchers at GSK, it takes about 12-15 years and costs over £500 million (Sh 62 billion) to discover and develop a new medicine or vaccine.

New medicines

"To shorten the amount of time it takes to safely develop new medicines and vaccines, we work with academic institutions, governments, and other pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies," GSK says in its website

But the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's programme is premised on the belief that by eliminating profit structures, simple and available technologies can be deployed to tap cheap cure and preventative medicines for malaria, tuberculosis and HIV Aids from the global pool of talent

Says Mr Yamada:, "Grand Challenges Explorations will continue to fill the pipeline with possibilities and hopefully produce a breakthrough idea that could save untold numbers of lives."

The project is expected to significantly increase the number of people using original drugs in the developing countries

In Africa, like in other developing continents, the access to vital medicines has mainly been enhanced through the use of generic drugs as patent holders, usually the multinational corporations, sell original drugs beyond the reach of many people.