Kenyan malaria researcher benefits from Oxford University support

18 November 2008

The work of a young Kenyan scientist, who holds an honorary appointment at the University of Oxford, has shown how much still needs to be done across Africa to provide children with bed nets to protect them from malaria.
His study has been published in the Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals.
Malaria kills nearly a million people in Africa every year. For over 15 years it has been known that sleeping under a net treated with an insecticide can substantially reduce the chances of a young African child dying.
Dr Abdisalan Noor and colleagues show that the use of insecticide-treated bed nets to protect children from malaria has risen six-fold in Africa in the past seven years, but 90 million children still do not have access to this simple protective tool, and remain at risk from the life-threatening disease. Countries that distribute bed nets free of charge report a much greater increase in usage over countries that make people to pay for them.
The success of bed net coverage in a few countries, including Kenya, shows what can be achieved in a few short years with adequate funding, political will, and a good distribution network.
Dr Abdisalan Noor, from the Kenyan Medical Research Institute, has worked for eight years under the mentorship of Professor Bob Snow of the Centre for Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford, who is based in Kenya. During his doctoral studies, he spent a year in 2003 in the Department of Zoology at Oxford under supervision by Dr Simon Hay.
‘This really opened my eyes to UK academic life,’ he says. ‘After I was awarded a Research Training Fellowship by the Wellcome Trust, I was really honoured to be made an Honorary Visiting Research Fellow at the Nuffield Department of Medicine by Professor Peter Ratcliffe.’
‘Such an appointment means a lot to me – to be affiliated with a prestigious university and supported by some of the world leaders in tropical medicine has provided a huge boost to my own confidence and abilities as a scientist in Kenya.’
Oxford’s world-renowned global health programme is a leader in the fight against infectious diseases (such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and avian flu) and other prevalent diseases (such as cancer, stroke, heart disease and diabetes). Key to its success is a long-standing network of dedicated Wellcome Trust-funded research units in Asia (Thailand, Laos and Vietnam) and Kenya, and work at the MRC Unit in The Gambia.
For more information contact Dr Abdisalan Noor on anoor@nairobi.kemri-wellcome.org or +254 20 2715160 or 2720163.
Or the Press Office, University of Oxford on +44 (0)1865 280530 or press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk.