Curing malaria
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SCOTT JAGOW: An Indian software company called TCS has come up with a new technology that’ll help fight Malaria. Malaria kills more than a million people each year in Asia and Africa. Miranda Kennedy reports.
MIRANDA KENNEDY: The World Health Organization says the developing world desperately needs new malaria drugs. Although the infection is treatable, there’s no foolproof cure.
M Vidyasagar is head of the life sciences team at TCS. He says the response of the big pharmaceutical companies has been disappointing.
M VIDYASAGAR: Malaria is a poor man’s disease. So most of the pharmaceutical companies tend to concentrate on diseases that are rich man’s diseases.
So “first world diseases” like diabetes and cancer tend to get more attention than malaria. And even if TCS comes up with the technology for a cure, it will still have to convince a drug company to test and manufacture it.
In New Delhi, I’m Miranda Kennedy for Marketplace.
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